Abuse deficiencies cited in nursing homes more than doubled in four years, a Government Accountability Office report has found.
During a July 16 hearing on the report, members of the Senate Finance Committee, slammed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a lack of oversight.
CMS should “fix the problems identified by the Government Accountability Office,” said Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA).
Although most instances of abuse are documented outside of facilities, they came under the spotlight.
“Incidents of physical, verbal, mental and sexual abuse are on the rise,” added Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). He was among speakers wondering how background checks for LTC employees were not universal.
American Health Care Association President and CEO Mark Parkinson said providers want to find bad actors before they start through a national data bank.
“We don’t have access to this information,” he said, “and we need it.”
From the August 2019 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
