Nursing Home Quality Analysis

Story from The Medicare Rights Center newsletter, "Medicare Watch" on a study performed by Consumer's Reports. The investigation finds that, compared to for-profit facilities, not-for-profit, independent nursing homes tend to provide better quality care, likely because they tend to have more staff on hand. On average, not-for-profits provide almost an hour of additional nursing care each day per resident and provide nearly twice as much care from registered nurses. However, nonprofits make up only a small fraction of an industry dominated by for-profit homes.

Still, only 7.3 percent of nonprofit homes met Consumer Reports' standards for providing good care. A mere 2 percent of for-profits were classified as quality nursing homes. While the nursing home industry has said that more Medicaid funding would help to increase staffing and improve care, the report notes that investigators found no evidence that the average state Medicaid payment to nursing homes had a significant impact on the percentage of homes identified as poor performers.

Consumer Reports also publishes an annual list of nursing homes that provide the best and worst care. According to the report, 186 of the homes cited on this year's list for poor-quality care have appeared on previous lists, demonstrating that efforts in recent years to curb bad care have made little headway. Enforcement policies are part of the problem, according to the study. The nursing home industry is a major contributor to state political campaigns, and legislators in turn pressure regulators to back down from pushing too hard. Nursing homes also challenge serious deficiency citations by state inspectors. Understaffed state agencies don't have the resources to defend their citations in court, and as a result, says Consumer Reports, inspectors seem to be watering down their violation reports.

©2007 Stavros | Main Office - 210 Old Farm Road, Amherst, MA 01002 | Telephone 413-256-0473  800-804-1899 | Fax 413-256-0190