A new report from the General Accounting Office finds room for improvement in a government website meant to help consumers choose among nursing homes.
The report stemmed from a request by Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and other lawmakers in the wake of reporting by the New York Times that was critical of the Nursing Home Compare web tool and its Five-Star Rating System. The Times concluded that the rating system, which includes information on more than 15,000 nursing homes, relied too heavily on self-reported data from the facilities and did not include potentially valuable information about state enforcement actions, allowing poorly performing institutions to receive high ratings. After that Times report, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates the rating system, strengthened reporting on nursing home staffing. It raised the bar on quality measures earlier this year, making it more difficult for a nursing home to achieve a five-star rating.
