Look-Up: How Nursing Home Staffing Fluctuates Nationwide
Use this tool to see staffing levels at skilled nursing homes in the U.S.
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Use this tool to see staffing levels at skilled nursing homes in the U.S.
Inspectors are citing nursing facilities for violating health and safety more often than during the Obama administration. But the average fine is nearly a third lower than it was before President Donald Trump took office.
An analysis of inspection records in California, Florida and Texas shows significant numbers of violations related to assisted living residents with dementia.
Medicare said those homes either lacked a registered nurse for “a high number of days” over three months, provided data the government couldn’t verify or didn’t supply their payroll data at all.
Daily nursing home payroll records just released by the federal government show the number of nurses and aides dips far below average on some days and consistently plummets on weekends.
One in 5 Medicare patients who leave the hospital for a nursing home end up back in the hospital. To discourage this, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will soon give bonuses and penalties to facilities based on their rehospitalization rates.
Use this tool to see how skilled nursing homes in the U.S. performed on two metrics of quality.
Increasingly, owners of nursing homes outsource services to companies in which they also have financial interest or control. That allows the nursing homes to claim to be in the red while owners reap hidden profits.
Medicare is discouraging regional offices from levying fines for “one-time mistakes” or from using daily fines that seek to put pressure on nursing homes to make changes.
A Kaiser Health News analysis of federal inspection records shows that nursing home inspectors labeled mistakes in infection control as serious for only 161 of the 12,056 homes they have cited since 2014.
Medicaid covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents, but it pays less than other types of insurance.
Too often enforcement of rules for dealing with crisis is lax, advocates for nursing home residents say.
Although proponents say the policies offered by nursing homes are more attuned to patients, some report frustrations when trying to dispute care decisions.
Of the 528 nursing homes that graduated from special focus status before 2014 and are still operating, more than half — 52 percent — have harmed patients or operated in a way that put patients in serious jeopardy within the past three years, a KHN analysis finds.
Medicaid pays for two-thirds of nursing home residents, but some recipients don’t even know they’re on it.
Hospitals rarely help patients find the best nursing home. When they do advise, hospitals sometimes push their own facilities.
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