Plan of correction

Definition

The written fix a licensed provider files after a survey finds it deficient.

Why It Matters

A survey of a licensed or certified provider ends in a statement of deficiencies, and the provider answers it in writing. For a Medicare provider, federal rules make that answer a condition of taking part at all. Under 42 CFR 488.28(a), which sends nursing homes, home health agencies and hospices to rules of their own, a deficient provider may participate only if it has submitted an acceptable plan of correction within a timeframe the agency accepts. Section 488.28(d) says compliance is ordinarily expected within sixty days of notice. For a buyer the plan is worth more than the deficiency list beside it, because it records what the seller promised to change and by when, and an open one arrives as an operating constraint, not a piece of history. Ask for every statement of deficiencies and its plan across the last three survey cycles, then ask which items were cited more than once.

In numbers: A survey ends, the provider files a plan of correction, and 42 CFR 488.28(d) ordinarily expects compliance within 60 days of the notice. Close on day 45 and you inherit the last 15 days of somebody else's promise, plus the revisit that checks it, on a license you have owned for two weeks.