Nursing Home Closings Show Broken System
By Tim Wheat
The nursing home industry wants you to think that because some nursing homes are bad, that some are good. But this is not the conclusion that follows from the recent Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) actions in Tennessee. The poor performance of all nursing homes is chronic and persistent. Long-term Medicaid the largest funding source is disproportionately channeled to expensive and undesirable institutions.
The CMS evaluation of nursing homes is not like “Consumer Reports.” CMS
evaluates the institutions based on federal minimum standards, and reports only
on the facilities failing to meet the minimum requirements. Of course even
failure can have its intensity; and CMS notes if the failure puts people in
immediate Jeopardy and actual harm. Think of Consumer Reports only listing
toasters that failed to heat bread, and then reporting if the level of failure
endangered people, electrocuted the user or started widespread house fires.
The nursing home lobby wants you to think that widespread failure to meet
minimum federal standards is their industry being singled out and that the
failures are isolated.
"If they have problems they are going to need money to fix those problems," said Ron Taylor, executive director of the Tennessee Health Care Association, the lobby for almost 300 long-term care facilities in Tennessee. "We have facilities facing penalties of hundreds- of-thousands of dollars. That could put them out of business."
Right away the nursing home lobby is working to spin the tragedy into a plea for more government funding.
Statewide nursing homes have shown improvement in some areas of care since 2002. Bedsores, typical of poor care in institutions, are down from 15.4% in 2002, to 14.5% last year. It is interesting to note however that facilities that received no deficiencies from CMS has been steadily declining since 2002. This seems to point out that the Tennessee nursing home industry aims for mediocrity, attempting to stay just above federal requirements.
Background on the nursing home industry from MCIL:
One U.S. Attorney's Lawsuit Against A Nursing Home.
Corporate Welfare, Waste, Deceit and Mismanagement: The Nursing Home Industry.
Recent News:
The Tennessean
Warnings let homes cover their tracks
By FLOYD STEWART JR., Wednesday, 12/05/07
Commercial Appeal
Collierville nursing home must move clients
By Mary Powers, Saturday, December 1, 2007
The Tennessean
Bredesen urges explanation for nursing home crackdown
By ERIK SCHELZIG, Sunday, 12/09/07
