If you are looking into nursing home options, Pro Publica has an online tool worth exploring, Nursing Home Inspect. The tool relies on federal government inspection reports to spotlight nursing homes with serious deficiencies. It also shows the average fines paid by nursing homes and the number of times nursing homes have had payments suspended on new admissions as a result of deficiencies.
The information on Nursing Home Inspect comes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS collects data on all Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes. And, you can search nursing home inspection reports in any number of ways, including by key word and by state.
You can compare the nursing homes in a state based on an array of measures. For example, you can see all nursing homes in a state with serious deficiencies that put patients at immediate risk of harm. And, serious deficiencies abound in many states. Click here for a summary of Nursing Home Inspect’s state-by-state breakdown.
You can take a deep dive into each nursing facility. Nursing Home Inspect includes information on whether a nursing home is for-profit or non-profit, the number of beds, the amount it has been fined in the last three inspection cycles and the degree of severity of its deficiencies. It also indicates whether a nursing home is a “Special Focus Facility.” These nursing homes have serious quality deficiencies that CMS is focused on addressing. It is likely wise to stay away from these facilities.
Some states are more proactive than others at issuing fines on nursing homes with deficiencies. You can find out which states are more and less proactive and what the average fine is in a state.
If you simply want to know which nursing homes in a state have the worst records, Nursing Home Inspect provides you with a list of the 20 nursing homes with the most fines and the 20 nursing homes with the greatest number of serious deficiencies.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Don’t be misled by “five-star” nursing home ratings
- New study finds Medicare Advantage plan enrollees end up in lower quality nursing homes than people in traditional Medicare
- Beware of chain nursing homes
- Nursing homes can be cool places to live: The Eden Alternative
- Housing options for older adults