healthcare in the United States Healthcare in the United States is largely provided by private sector healthcare facilities, and paid for by a combination of public programs, private insurance, and out-of-pocket payments. The U.S. is the only developed country without a syste ...

, immediate jeopardy (IJ) is a term for situations in which a medical entity is noncompliant with regulations and requirements in a way that has placed the health and safety of recipients in its care at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment, or death. Immediate jeopardy, and the noncompliance that created it, carries the most serious sanctions for entities. To qualify as immediate jeopardy, a situation must be clearly identifiable due to the severity of its harm or likelihood for serious harm and the immediate need for it to be corrected to avoid further or future serious harm. Immediate jeopardy warnings are most often applied to

nursing home A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms ...

s, but can be applied to

hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

s and other providers, suppliers, or

medical laboratories A medical laboratory or clinical laboratory is a laboratory where tests are conducted out on clinical specimens to obtain information about the health of a patient to aid in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Clinical medical labor ...

. Following a periodic survey of an entity and a thorough investigation, the

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...

(CMS) or a

state health agency A state health agency (SHA), or state department of health, is a department or agency of the state governments of the United States focused on public health. The state secretary of health is a constitutional or at times a statutory official in s ...

acting on behalf of CMS may issue an immediate jeopardy warning (also called a notice, finding, or tag) to an entity. The entity must immediately provide a plan of correction for the immediate jeopardy. Removal of the immediate jeopardy may include termination of noncompliant employees, being placed under federal temporary management, or in severe cases, closure of the entity. CMS requires removal of the immediate jeopardy within 23 days of the warning, and will withdraw funding if the immediate jeopardy is not removed. A report by the

Kaiser Family Foundation KFF, which was formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation or The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, is an American non-profit organization, non-profit organization, headquartered in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. It prefers KFF, w ...

found that in 2019, 23% of nursing homes in the US had an actual harm or immediate jeopardy deficiency. Immediate jeopardy warnings for hospitals are much less frequent. Immediate jeopardy warnings are not necessarily reflected in third-party

patient safety Patient safety is a specialized field about enhancing healthcare quality through the systematic prevention, reduction, reporting, and analysis of medical errors and preventable harm that contribute to severe outcomes for the patient. While health ...

rankings.

References

{{reflist Healthcare in the United States Medicare and Medicaid (United States)