CMS Special Focus Facilities

The CMS Special Focus Facility (SFF) programme identifies nursing homes with a history of serious quality problems. Facilities placed on the SFF list receive more frequent inspections — roughly every 6 months instead of annually. Facilities that fail to improve can be terminated from Medicare and Medicaid.

"SFF Candidate" facilities have been identified as meeting SFF criteria but have not yet been formally placed on the watchlist, typically because the programme has a capacity limit of approximately 88 active SFF designations at any time.