With nursing homes and other long-term care facilities desperately short of nurses and aides, it is more important than ever for consumers to know about staffing levels, quality, and turnover. But it has been difficult to get some key information. Now, the government has taken a modest step to help. In January, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) [...]
We are beginning to learn which nursing homes are most likely to be hit with COVID-19. And while studies are preliminary and based on very limited data, they tell a troubling story: Location and the race of residents matter a lot. But they also tell a surprising story: Quality (at least as measured by Medicare), the share of Medicaid residents, [...]
This week, The New York Times published an investigative report by Katie Thomas on Medicare’s five-star rating system for nursing homes. Among its findings: Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare tool relies largely on self-reported data by the facilities themselves and is thus unreliable. On one hand, this is a bit odd, since Medicare’s website explicitly describes these very shortcomings. On the [...]