by Carol J. Bova
Medicare offers a “Nursing Home Compare” website. It uses a one- to five-star rating system for four categories: Overall Rating, Health Inspections, Staffing, and Quality Measures. There is a category called Special Focus Facility for a nursing home with a persistent poor quality of care, subject to more frequent inspections and escalating fines. New nursing homes are unrated until more information is available. The website reports also include facility details, ownership, inspections, deficiencies, and fines.
The list below combines the percentage of special focus, one and two star (below average and much below average) nursing homes in one column, three, four and five star (average, above average and much above average) nursing homes in the second, and the percentage of new unrated facilities in the third for the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Sorted by overall rating, from best to worst, Virginia ranks 41st in the country with 41.8% of its nursing homes below average. Only Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana had more below average facilities than Virginia.
Correction: The “new unrated” percentage for Louisiana is 0.7%, not 8.3%.
The pandemic’s one possible positive outcome is bringing the condition of our nursing homes to the attention of the citizens of the Commonwealth and creating a demand for improvement.
Carol J. Bova is a writer in Mathews County and on the staff of Chesapeake Style magazine.
