List cites high- and low-performing nursing homes

By Dave Ranney, KHI News Service, December 21, 2010

Kansas Advocates for Better Care has released its annual survey of the state’s best and poorest performing nursing homes.

"This is quality-of-care information that’s consumer friendly," said Margaret Farley, president of the KABC governing board. "It takes a look at the top tier and at the bottom tier of nursing homes in the state."

The survey is based on U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid data for each of the last three years.

"These are not insolated (inspections), they are trends," Farley said, "and what they’re showing is that the top tier is trending higher quality and that that the bottom tier is not getting the lesson."

According to the data, 77 nursing homes were cited for 10 or more deficiencies during each of their last three annual inspections.

Fifteen of the 77 were nonprofit facilities, 62 were for-profit.

"The deficiencies we’re talking about here are things like actual harm, poor nutrition, serious medication errors, or putting people in immediate jeopardy," said Farley, a Lawrence attorney. "They’re not for things like having a burned out light bulb or not putting something away in the kitchen."

"These (deficiencies) are for things that relate to quality of care, quality of life and the treatment of residents," she said.

Seventeen nursing homes were cited for five or fewer such serious deficiencies in each their last three inspections. Eleven of the 17 were nonprofit, six were for-profit.

Top-performing nursing homes, location

"This just goes to show that it can be done, that facilities can provide quality care," Farley said. "The question, really, is one of priorities and whether quality of care and quality of living are the most important things going on in a facility."

The poor-performing nursing homes are listed below.

Currently, there are 339 nursing homes in Kansas. Each is inspected every 12 to 15 months by Kansas Department on Aging surveyors.

Many of the 77 low-performing homes are known to be struggling.

"I hate to say this because no one likes to hear it, but so much of this comes down to reimbursement," said Cindy Luxem, executive director at Kansas Health Care Association. "There hasn’t been an increase in Medicaid reimbursement in Kansas for the last three years, and some of the homes on this list are 98 percent Medicaid, which, as everybody knows, doesn’t even begin to cover your costs."

Luxem represents the state’s for-profit nursing homes.

"We keep expecting these homes to do more and more for residents who are coming in frailer and frailer," Luxem said. "Then, at the same time, food costs keep going up, utilities keep going up, but you can’t turn the heat down, you can’t stop feeding people. It’s incredibly frustrating."

Poor-performing nursing homes, location, number of citations during most recent inspection

Top-performing nursing homes

Poor-performing nursing homes

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