Providers need to more aggressively weed out the minority of peers who consistently perform poorly, the leader of the nation’s second-largest nursing home association said recently.

“The bad apples have got to get out,” said Larry Minnix, president and CEO of the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging at a news conference at the group’s annual meeting last month.
“The government is not doing a good job of doing it, and providers are not doing a good job saying, ‘You’re screwing up – you need to get out.'”
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, who oversees a key long-term care quality commission and was at Minnix’s elbow, agreed: “Self-regulation means you have to regulate your self and others in the association. Otherwise, you could be in for a lot of trouble. One bad apple will, in modern parlance, go viral and affect everyone in the organization.”