A new study indicates for-profit nursing home residents are more likely to experience neglect, but an industry group strongly disputes the findings.
The study, from the University of Illinois-Chicago and published in Gerontology, looked at nearly 1,150 seniors treated at five Windy City-area hospitals. Researchers found those who received care at a for-profit nursing home were almost twice as likely to experience health issues stemming from substandard care compared with those treated in not-for-profit homes.
UIC utilized the Clinical Signs of Neglect Scale to quantify those health problems related to low-quality care.
“We saw more — and more serious — diagnoses among residents of for-profit facilities that were consistent with severe clinical signs of neglect,” Lee Friedman, associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the UIC School of Public Health, said. Those included severe dehydration in residents with feeding tubes, bed sores, broken catheters and improper medication management.
Study subjects received care at Chicago-area hospitals between 2007 and 2011 for issues related to substandard quality care. Friedman speculated that the discrepancy in care related to more money at for-profits going to high-level administrator salaries, leaving fewer dollars for clinical staffing.
“More oversight of these facilities, both for-profit and not-for-profit, needs to occur, together with improved screening and reporting of suspected cases of neglect by all parties,” Friedman concluded.
But the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living said the study’s conclusions are “faulty.”
The study “incorrectly compares very different populations of individuals with vastly diverse clinical conditions and functional abilities, along with inaccurate sample sizes,” said AHCA Associate Vice President of Quality & Clinical Affairs Holly Harmon.
Numbers from the latest Nursing Home Salary & Benefits Report, published by the Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service, also indicate that administrator salaries are close to equivalent. Administrators at for-profit nursing homes, for instance, earned about $112,000 on average, compared to $118,000 at their not-for-profit counterparts.
The sample size of for-profit homes used in the study was also six times the size of the not-for-profit sample. The community population studied was comprised of about 80% high-functioning individuals compared to about 20% low functioning, which is not typical of most nursing homes’ census.
