The federal government will improve and strengthen the standards on the Medicare website that consumers use to research their options when a loved one needs long-term care. A story published earlier this month by the New York Times, detailed how Nursing Home Compare, the government’s rating program for more than 15,000 U.S. nursing homes, will….
Continue ReadingNursing homes
Suggested Reading: He Just Wanted to Die at Home
Last month’s report “Dying in America” by the Institute of Medicine was an analysis of the shortcomings of U.S. health care at the end of life, as Nina Bernstein knows only too well. Writing in the New York Times, her account of one man’s last months was a poignant tale of how things can go….
Continue ReadingNursing Homes Escape Oversight, Patients Suffer
A flurry of news stories the last few weeks about the dismal safety record of U.S. nursing homes has renewed interested in beefing up inspections where 1 in 3 patients in skilled nursing facilities suffers a medication error, infection or some harm related to treatment, according to a government report by the Department of Health….
Continue ReadingOnline Assistance for Rating Senior Care Facilities
It’s hard enough to bear the emotional freight of putting an elderly loved in a care facility without the overwhelming burden of not knowing what’s available in your area, or how to assess a nursing home’s quality. A new digital service can help. Caregiverlist.com compiles data from more than 18,000 nursing homes across the country….
Continue ReadingCourt OKs Nursing Home Contract Even Though Confused Patient Could Not Have Understood It
Someone old enough to be a consenting adult is also, presumably, someone who understands what he or she is being asked to consent to. But not in one Florida appeals court. A recent court decision in Florida concerning a 92-year-old woman’s signature on her nursing home contract changes the basic premise of what it means….
Continue ReadingArbitration Agreements: Bad for Consumers, Good for Nursing Homes
Last month, Kaiser Health News published a story about mandatory arbitration agreements in nursing home contracts. Such agreements are common when signing up for services such as credit cards and cell phones. Increasingly, medical consumers are asked to sign arbitration agreements at doctors’ appointments (see our post about binding arbitration ). Essentially, agreeing to arbitrate….
Continue ReadingNew Tool for Finding Flaws in Nursing Home Care
The public-interest investigative news agency ProPublica has introduced a website to enable consumers to search government inspection reports of nursing homes throughout the country. Nursing Home Inspect offers thousands of recent reports from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Until recently, consumers, researchers and journalists had to file formal Freedom of Information Act….
Continue Reading