• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Wilcox Attorneys, PA

Wilcox Attorneys, PA an Arkansas Estate Planning & Trust Information Center

Northwest Arkansas Estate Planning Attorneys (479) 443-0062

Client Vault
  • Home
  • Our Firm
    • Our Firm
    • About the American Academy
    • Advantages of Working With Our Firm
    • Attorney and Staff Profiles
    • News & Events
    • Speaker Connection
  • services
    • Asset Protection & Business Planning
    • Elder Law & Medicaid Services
    • Estate and Gift Tax Figures
    • Estate Planning Services
    • Family-Owned Businesses & Farms
    • Incapacity Planning
    • Legacy Planning
    • Pet Planning
    • Secure Act
    • Special Needs Planning
    • Trust Administration & Probate
  • Webinars
  • Practice Areas
  • Resources
    • DocuBank
    • Elder Law Reports
    • Estate Planning Resources
      • Estate Planning Articles
      • Estate Planning Checkup
      • Estate Planning Definitions
      • Estate Planning Reports
      • Incapacity Planning Definitions
      • Is Your Estate Plan Outdated?
      • Top 10 Estate and Legacy Planning Techniques
    • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Estate Planning
      • Frequently Asked Questions for Families Without an Estate Plan
      • Incapacity Planning
      • Legacy Wealth Planning
      • Medicaid Planning
      • Pet Planning
      • Probate
      • Trust Administration & Probate
    • Newsletters
    • Pre Consultation Form
    • Trust Administration & Probate Resources
      • Bereavement Resources
      • How to Know if You Need Extra Help With Your Grieving
      • Loss of a Loved One
      • The Mourner’s Bill of Rights
      • Things You Need To Do When a Loved One Passes Away With a Trust
      • Things You Need To Do When a Loved One Passes Away With a Will
      • Trust Administration & Probate Definitions
  • Reviews
    • Our Reviews
    • Review Us
  • Contact Us
  • Blog

Government Raises the Bar on Nursing Home Ratings

February 25, 2015 by Deb Sexton Leave a Comment

This is an article from The Law Firm of Evan H. Farr, P.C. in Fairfax Virginia that we thought others may find helpful.

 

 

Nursing Home Rating
Nursing Home Compare Website

Q. My father has dementia and will need skilled nursing care in the near future. There are so many nursing homes in this area to consider, and I have heard differing opinions from friends and family. How can we really know which one is best, and how can we afford it?

A. When seniors and their families plan ahead, they can make multiple visits to facilities to find the one that best meets their needs. However, if you have no choice and need a nursing home for a loved one right away, there are other tools you can use to assist in your search, including the federal government’s online tool, Nursing Home Compare.

Nursing Home Compare is a great starting point for consumers, as it offers star ratings for all nursing homes that participate in Medicare (for short-term rehabilitation) or Medicaid (for long-term care). The ratings are based on the facility’s performance on health inspections, staffing hours for nurses and nursing assistants, and quality measures, such as the prevalence of pressure ulcers and falls among residents.

In recent news, the federal government is increasing its scrutiny and raising the bar on an array of quality measures, requiring nursing homes to do more to get high scores on Nursing Home Compare. In the past, the grades — in the form of one- to five-star ratings — relied heavily on self-reported data, allowing a majority of homes to score high ratings. (55% of the nation’s nursing homes had overall scores of either four or five stars on Nursing Home Compare in January.) The system has come under recent criticism because some highly rated nursing homes have had numerous problems and face fines and other enforcement actions, which led to these modifications being made.

What measures will be more scrutinized in the new quality rating system?
• Health Inspections – More than 180,000 onsite reviews are currently used in the health inspection scoring nationally. The health inspection rating will now contain information from the last 3 years of onsite inspections, including both standard surveys and any complaint surveys. Information will be gathered by trained, objective inspectors who will go onsite to the nursing home and follow a specific process to determine the extent to which a nursing home has met Medicaid and Medicare’s minimum quality requirements.
• Staffing – The staffing rating has information about the number of hours of care provided on average to each resident each day by nursing staff. This rating will now consider differences in the levels of residents’ care need in each nursing home. In the new system, a nursing home with residents who had more severe needs would be expected to have more nursing staff than a nursing home where the resident needs were not as high.
• Quality Measures (QMs) – More than 12 million assessments of the conditions of nursing home residents are currently used in the Five-Star rating system. The quality measure rating has information on 11 different physical and clinical measures for nursing home residents. The rating will now include information about nursing homes’ use of anti psychotic medications in both long-stay and short-stay residents, as well as the percentages of residents who develop bedsores or are injured in falls.
The changes follow others announced in October that require additional verification of self-reported staffing levels and other attempts to confirm quality data submitted by the homes. With the changes being enforced, many homes could drop a star or more from their current levels, even though nothing may have changed, officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

According to CMS, no rating system can address all of the important considerations that go into a decision about which nursing home may be best for a particular person. It is important to take into account the extent to which specialty care is provided (such as specialized rehabilitation or dementia care) and how easy it will be for family members to visit the nursing home resident. CMS suggests that consumers should use the Nursing Home Compare Web site together with other sources of information for the nursing homes (including a visit to the nursing home) and State or local organizations (such as local advocacy groups and the State Ombudsman program).

How else can you tell if a nursing home is a good fit? As CMS states, ratings are helpful, but do not tell the full story. Before committing to a nursing home for your father, be sure to take a tour during regular business hours, have a meal, pay attention to smells, sounds, and temperature, and observe whether residents are engaging in activities or sitting around listlessly.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Deb Sexton
Latest posts by Deb Sexton (see all)
  • Estate Planning is Essential Whether You Are Married or Not - April 25, 2018
  • Income Tax Basis in Estate Planning – Part 2 - April 23, 2018
  • The Downsizing Generation: How to Handle a Surplus of Stuff When a Loved One Ages - April 18, 2018

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Wilcox Attorneys, PA

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE ESTATE PLANNING WORKSHEET

There's a lot that goes into setting up a comprehensive estate plan, but with our FREE worksheet, you'll be one step closer to getting yourself and your family on the path to a secure and happy future.

Subscribe to Our Blog

Subscribe to our blog for all the latest estate planning news and updates!

Office Address

Fayetteville
2766 Millennium Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72703
Phone: (479) 443-0062

Office Address

Prairie Grove
1100 Division Street, Suite 4
Prairie Grove, AR 72753
Phone: (479) 846-6026

( By Appointment Only )

Office Hours

Monday9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Thursday9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Friday9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Map

map for office
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

footer-logo

© 2023 American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.