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Nursing home ratings may be misleading
January 18, 2005
The federal Medicare.gov web site provides information on nursing homes, but the site has been criticized for being misleading.
Among the complaints is the information being too vague, outdated, and sometimes providing incorrect information. Medicare's site should be used as a tool, but experts say the information must be considered as merely a guide and not used to make final decisions for choosing a nursing home.
One of the most concerning complaints about the nursing home information is the potential for nursing home abuse or neglect that can be misinterpreted by the information provided on the site. For instance, a nursing home showing it has the most citations compared to a nursing home with just a couple deficiencies might be ruled out, for seemingly obvious reasons.
Without including what the deficiencies were, a family basing its decisions on a nursing home they believe has the best record might actually be putting their loved one at highest risk for nursing home abuse or neglect. The nursing home with a high number of deficiencies might have been guilty of offenses like potential fire hazard because there were too many decorations on the walls and have since been corrected.
Many of the site's deficiencies are outdated and have since been corrected and do not put a potential nursing home resident at real risk for improper and negligent care. In addition, reports are performed by state inspectors that expose the comparisons to subjective scores.
While the Medicare site can be helpful in some ways, many officials warn of taking the information too literally since it is too vague to base real decisions on. Nursing home quality cannot be based strictly on the site, but should be based on visiting facilities and seeing first hand what its conditions, operations, and capabilities are.
If you or someone you know has experienced nursing home abuse,
please contact a Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer for your legal rights.
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