A new rating system in the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes is causing anxiety in the nursing home industry.
The nursing home operators are worried about the ramifications for their businesses on whether they get one or two stars, when five is the best.
On Thursday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was to let everyone know just how many stars each home is getting. The industry is already questioning the validity of the rankings. Other operators said the five star system is long over due.
The system “is poorly planned, prematurely implemented and hamhandedly rolled out,” said Larry Minnix, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, an industry trade group.
Federal officials expect the ranking system will put nursing homes “on the path to improvement” because they know family members will think twice before putting their loved ones in a one star facility.
The rating system is based on state inspection, staffing levels and quality measures, such as percentage of residents with pressure sores. Stars will be rewarded for each category as well as for their overall quality.
Consumer groups adheres to the concept, but agree there is room for potential problems with the data.
“From a consumer viewpoint, it’s not stringent enough,” said Alice H. Hedt, executive director of the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform. “It’s basically taking information already available on Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare Web site and pulling it into an easier system for consumers to use, and that is a good thing.”
Consumers should consider the star rating, but not solely rely on them when comparing facilities, Hedt said. Her organization also issued a press release warning that nursing homes may appear in the ratings to give better care than they actually do.
“Our initial reaction is that consumers should probably avoid any facility with a one-or two-star rating and even a three-star rating unless people they trust convince them that the rating is inaccurate or unfair,” she said.
In Indiana, there are eight nonprofit nursing homes that have reported to have gotten one star for staffing even though they have some of the highest staffing levels in the states, said Jim Leich, president and chief executive officer of the Indiana Association of Homes for the Aging. He thinks the one star rating is the result of a records glitch particular to any nursing home that is part of a campus that includes housing for residents with less intensive care needs.
“It’s really going to be an injustice for some of our best facilities,” he said.
Martha Kutik, the president and CEO of the Jennings Center for Older Adults in Garfield Heights, Ohio, got four stars for her nursing home and she said she is still worried that the rating system relies on surveys that measure cracks in the ceiling but do not measure patient and family satisfaction.
“Any system that’s going to measure quality for consumers should keep satisfaction high on the list,” Kutik said.
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