By Healthcare Facilities Today

The federal government shutdown hasn’t derailed the new health-insurance program, but it has suspended routine safety inspections of hospitals and nursing homes,  Miles Moffeit said in a recent blog posted on the Dallas News web site.

According to Moffeit, Texas is among the states hardest hit. Its nearly $1 million monthly appropriation to pay for such reviews remains frozen until Congress passes a new funding bill.

States conduct investigations of healthcare facilities on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the nation’s primary overseer of federally funded care facilities. In recent days, states have been under a directive from the agency to limit their inspections largely to cases posing "immediate"jeopardy” to patients, and those where a hospital’s funding is at risk, according to the blog.

But "standard surveys," which are the annual inspections of nursing homes and hospitals, and "initial surveys" to gauge whether a care facility being proposed can receive Medicare funding can't proceed.

Read the blog.