Nearly 1,400 nursing homes recently lost star ratings on the Nursing Home Compare website because of allegedly inadequate numbers of registered nurses on staff or failure to report reliable staffing information.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated the ratings in late July, leaving 1,387 out of 15,616 facilities (nearly 9%) with the lowest ratings for staffing, per a Kaiser Health News analysis.
The facilities with a one-star staffing rating had a lack of a registered nurse for a “high number of days” over three months, provided unverifiable information or didn’t supply payroll data in any way, Kaiser reported. Downgraded homes reportedly had a week or more without any RNs.
However, LeadingAge CEO Katie Smith Sloan claimed in a letter to CMS Administrator Seema Verma that technical mistakes by both operators and the agency have led to inaccurate data being posted, lower ratings and unfair penalties to providers.
Smith Sloan also asked CMS to allow staffing numbers and star ratings to be changed immediately, rather than at quarter’s end.
From the September 01, 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
