Florida Auditors’ Report ‘Lambastes’ Health Agency for Nursing Home Oversight

Days after Florida lawmakers approved a law limiting lawsuits against nursing homes, the state's auditors have issued a "stinging report ... lambast[ing]" the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration for its "approach to penalizing substandard nursing homes ... [and] the way it informs consumers about the quality" of homes, the Orlando Business Journal reports. The auditors point out that the agency canceled Medicaid contracts of six "chronically underperforming" homes only after "allowing the nursing homes to rack up two years' worth of poor quality reports." "[M]ost frequently," the agency punishes nursing homes with "much milder methods" and has issued only 43 emergency actions against homes in FY 1999-2000, "well below the legislative standard of 51," the report says. Further, the agency performed 694 full-home surveys during that fiscal year, rather than the lawmaker-recommended 815. The auditors also charge that the state keeps "consumers in the dark" because its public quarterly nursing home guide does not include the number of problems in specific nursing homes. And a new nursing home scorecard does not state the "frequency and seriousness" of problems at nursing homes and does not tell the time of a violation and whether any action was taken to correct the problem, the auditors maintain. In response to the report, former agency Secretary Ruben King-Shaw Jr. said that "Florida has taken bold, strong action to improve the quality of long term care services rendered through the Medicaid program." He added that canceling Medicaid contracts at the six homes "effect[ed] positive change" -- three of the six homes agreed to create quality assurance departments. As for concerns about the state-published nursing home information, agency spokesperson Bruce Middlebrooks said that the agency does not have funds to create "lengthier, more detailed" guides (Lundine, Orlando Business Journal, 5/21).