The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released an updated set of nursing home rankings on its Nursing Home Compare website. The new rankings saw many of the 15,000 listed nursing homes lose ground \u2013 including several that lost one or more of the total \u201cstars\u201d available for nursing home care.<\/p>\n
The new rankings include several factors that were not measured previously. These include usage of anti-psychotic medications, which can be dangerous in elderly patients with dementia and other cognitive conditions. They also include improved metrics that track whether facilities have enough staff, which is key to avoiding patient neglect and to providing good care.<\/p>\n
The tougher standards changed this year\u2019s rankings significantly. About 61 percent of the listed facilities saw their overall scores drop when the new metrics were added. Nearly one in three nursing homes lost at least one star in their ratings, including 1,200 facilities that dropped from the highest five-star status to four stars. Three percent of the listed facilities lost two or more stars.<\/p>\n
CMS estimates that 1.4 million people used the website last year to compare nursing homes in their area. Nursing homes, in turn, use the rankings to identify areas in which they need to focus their improvement efforts, or as marketing tools when a facility can boast a five-star rating through the website. As a result, experienced Oklahoma City nursing home abuse and neglect attorneys are optimistic that the changes in the ratings will encourage many facilities to redouble their efforts to provide good, safe care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released an updated set of nursing home rankings on its Nursing Home Compare website. The new rankings saw many of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nursing-home-neglect-abuse"],"yoast_head":"\n