This is hardly “knock me over with a feather” news for nursing home lawyers. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – a federal agency – gave slmost a quarter of our nursing homes the lowest possible rating, under a new ranking system released yesterday. The new five-star system is determined by factors such as staffing and the results of state inspections. The purpose is to simplify for consumers the arduous process of choosing an appropriate nursing homes.
The study also tries to rank nursing homes by state: States with the highest percentage of nursing homes with a one-star ranking were: Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee. States with the highest percentage of homes with five stars were: Delaware, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Hawaii.
The Medicare website has a pretty neat way of evaluating the different nursing homes. Click here to see how you or your loved one’s nursing home fares.