Choosing a nursing home can be a daunting task. There are a lot of factors to consider when making a decision that will impact such a large part of your life.
Unfortunately, referring to Medicare reviews on various nursing homes might not be adequate enough. Recently, The New York Times published an investigative report that found Medicare’s tool used to compare nursing homes relies heavily on self-reported data by facilities themselves and is therefore mostly unreliable.
Keeping this in mind, it is important that consumers do not rely solely on Medicare’s rating system. Medicare mostly rates safety, not general quality. Here are examples of two key components in the rating system that can be oversimplified and consequently flawed:
- Staffing: Patient/staff ratios can be helpful, but are not always an ample statistic when standing alone. While Medicare only provides this ratio, several other key factors are being overlooked: staff morale, turnover or training.
- Falls: Oftentimes, a nursing home with fewer reported falls is considered a better choice than one with more. However, it’s easy to skew these statistics since nursing homes might restrict residents’ freedom in order to restrict the risk of falling. Seniors might prefer a facility with a higher fall rate than one that keeps patients from moving at all.
As you can see, there’s more to these Medicare reviews than meets the eye. Oftentimes, its reviews and the statistics offered are not enough to make a sufficient judgment on a facility.
Beyond the Medicare rating system, seniors and consumers can do some investigating of their own. Talk to residents of the nursing homes you’re considering and their families; visit the facilities in person; talk to the nurses and aides who provide the hands-on care; check the local ombudsman office for complaints.