“The Trump Administration and CMS are committed to ensuring that nursing home residents are safe from abuse and neglect. Through the “transparency” pillar of our five-part strategy to ensure safety and quality in nursing homes, we are giving residents and families the ability to make informed choices,” said Administrator Seema Verma. “With today’s action, the Trump Administration is putting critical information at consumers’ fingertips, empowering them and incentivizing nursing homes to compete on cost and quality.”
The Nursing Home Compare tool displays an array of information about nursing homes – including whether a facility meets federal standards with respect to health and safety compliance inspections, staffing levels, and quality measure performance. Previously, consumers could investigate past instances of abuse citations at a nursing home, but finding this information from its health inspection reports available on Nursing Home Compare required multiple steps. CMS is minimizing the steps, making it easier for patients, residents, and their families and caregivers to quickly identify nursing homes with past citations for abuse.Patients and families will see CMS’ new alert icon for Nursing Home Compare, shown below.
Beginning October 23, the new alert icon will be added to the Nursing Home Compare website for facilities cited on inspection reports for one or both of the following: 1) abuse that led to harm of a resident within the past year; and 2) abuse that could have potentially led to harm of a resident in each of the last two years. To ensure CMS is providing the latest information, the icon will be updated monthly, at the same time CMS inspection results are updated. This means consumers will not be forced to wait for CMS’s quarterly updates to see the latest -related information – and nursing homes will not be flagged for longer than necessary if their most recent inspections indicate they have remedied the issues that caused the citations for abuse or potential for abuse and no longer meet the criteria for the icon. This icon will supplement existing information, including the Nursing Home Five-Star Ratings, helping consumers develop a more complete understanding of a facility’s quality.
There are many factors that indicate a nursing home’s quality, and the Star Ratings may not capture some nuances. For example, a nursing home cited for an incident of abuse may have adequate staffing numbers and provide excellent dementia or rehabilitative care. Previously, consumers would clearly see this facility’s performance in these areas through the Star Ratings, but abuse complaint allegation information may not have been as clear. Under the CMS action announced today, this facility would have an alert icon displayed, allowing consumers to see both its Star Ratings and the icon, helping them easily weigh the facility’s quality. In addition, we are continuing our work to improve the usefulness of the Star Ratings.
As you might expect, the industry is not fond of the change. Calling the alert icon a "Do Not Proceed," alert, industry representatives called for their own "halt" of it's use. As reported in McKnight's Long-Term Care News:
There are many factors that indicate a nursing home’s quality, and the Star Ratings may not capture some nuances. For example, a nursing home cited for an incident of abuse may have adequate staffing numbers and provide excellent dementia or rehabilitative care. Previously, consumers would clearly see this facility’s performance in these areas through the Star Ratings, but abuse complaint allegation information may not have been as clear. Under the CMS action announced today, this facility would have an alert icon displayed, allowing consumers to see both its Star Ratings and the icon, helping them easily weigh the facility’s quality. In addition, we are continuing our work to improve the usefulness of the Star Ratings.
As you might expect, the industry is not fond of the change. Calling the alert icon a "Do Not Proceed," alert, industry representatives called for their own "halt" of it's use. As reported in McKnight's Long-Term Care News:
Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, said the plan should be halted until there is more clarity.
“We support transparency so that potential residents and their families can make an informed decision on care,” Parkinson said in a statement. “We appreciate CMS’ efforts to improve Nursing Home Compare but as we have previously suggested, we believe that CMS should create a standard and rational definition of both abuse and neglect and then report them separately. That would help provide consumers with the information that they need.”
“In addition, CMS should add customer satisfaction to Nursing Home Compare because that is the best way for consumers to select facilities. It’s surprising that we can look for customer reviews of restaurants and hotels that we select, but that information isn’t available for nursing homes. We should have a way to let families and residents think of the facilities they are considering,” Parkinson added.Fortunately, we now have better information for consumers than is available for restaurants and hotels, particularly given that the residents of nursing homes, unlike patrons of restaurants and hotels, are not always able or competent to report "bad service."
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