New Rating System for Nursing Homes Stirs Up Questions

from Tulsa World ..

By KIM ARCHER

View a spreadsheet of Oklahoma nursing home ratings.

tulsaworld.com/ nursinghomereport

Compare nursing homes on Medicare's Web site.

tulsaworld.com/ comparenursinghomes

A day after the federal government released a groundbreaking new five-star rating system for the nation's nursing homes, phone calls from consumers came pouring in to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, officials said.

"I wouldn't say it was a deluge, but there were numerous callers," said Dorya Huser, chief of long-term care for the state Health Department.

Many people wanted the statewide list that showed ratings for the 323 nursing homes that take Medicare or Medicaid, she said. The list is provided online at the Tulsa World Web site (shown above).

Others were confused about quality indicators and other factors that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services used to formulate their ratings, Huser said.

CMS uses about three years of inspection surveys, along with quality indicators and staffing data provided by nursing home providers themselves, she said.

Huser suggested that if people want to know about those ratings, they might talk with administrators of the nursing homes to learn more. However, due to federal privacy laws, administrators would only be able to provide general information about how they gather and report the data, she said.

Most callers Friday seemed to be consumers, but she couldn't rule out providers, Huser said.

"We also had some calls asking for all the investigative reports," she said.

Huser said consumers didn't realize that copies cost 25 cents per page, but that people may come to the department and read the reports for free.

Oklahoma's nursing homes ranked a median three of five stars. One in four of the state's homes rated one star, while one in three rated four or five stars, according to a Tulsa World analysis.

In the Tulsa metropolitan area, only two homes ranked the highest, five stars: Wood Manor Nursing Center in Claremore and Frances Streitel Villa in Collinsville, according to the CMS report.

The rating system does not cover a handful of nursing homes that do not accept patients on Medicare of Medicaid.

It also does not cover assisted living centers or other types of long-term care outside of nursing homes.

Kim Archer 581-8315

Originally published by KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer.

(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.