The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it is updating its nursing home surveyor guidance to emphasize more off-hours surveys. These changes are slated to go into effect on March 30, 2026. Our VIBE Check tool ensures that your facility will be prepared.
What is VIBE Check?
VIBE Check is an AI-driven mock survey tool that is tailored specifically for long-term care facilities, allowing them to prepare for upcoming surveys. This innovative tool uses the CMS Form 802 mock survey methodology to identify potential vulnerabilities in your facility before state survey inspections. By shining a light on these areas, VIBE Check helps you strengthen any potential weak points, ensuring your facility is always survey-ready.
What You Should Know about CMS’ changes
CMS is directing state survey agencies to conduct more inspections outside regular business hours. The goal of off-hours surveys is to better capture care conditions during evenings, nights, and weekends – when staffing is often lower. Facilities should be prepared for unannounced visits at any time.
How VIBE Check helps: Our tool allows you to perform thorough mock surveys to identify and address opportunities within your facility. It also enables your staff to print and check off all items that the surveyors will ask for during the survey, allowing your staff to be always prepared for an unannounced visit from a survey team.
According to CMS, the make-up of a survey team will be more heavily based on the facility’s prior noncompliance and complaint history, with specialists on hand as needed.
How VIBE Check helps: VIBE Check gives insight into predictive star ratings, which includes a facility’s past citations, when current citations will move to another cycle or drop off within the next year, and projects a new star rating for your facility.
CMS is putting an increased emphasis on quality staffing as well as tougher plans of correction for citation.
How VIBE Check helps: Our tool identifies Federal Tags, develops plans of correction, and produces detailed summaries. Your facility will benefit from the Quality, Safety, & Education Portal (QSEP), which offers step-by-step guidance on handling F-Tags and ensures compliance.
The goal of CMS’ changes to the survey process is to better capture the true day-to-day operations of facilities and to observe staffing levels and resident care outside typical business hours. Don’t allow your facility to be caught flat-footed. VIBE Check makes sure that your staff is prepared for what is coming.
VIBE Check gives you the surveyor’s playbook as well as the tools address potential deficiencies. This saves your facility time, improves overall quality of care and ensures you’re always survey-ready.
