Lakeview Rest Home of Firth was added Tuesday to the federal list of 131 nursing homes nationwide with a history of serious quality issues.
MARK ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, February 11, 2008 6:00 pm
Lakeview Rest Home of Firth was added Tuesday to the federal list of 131 nursing homes nationwide with a history of serious quality issues.
Being listed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as a “Special Focus Facility” will lead to closer scrutiny from state regulators as well as extra assistance for the home with its systems and policies.
If Lakeview doesn’t improve, it could lose Medicare and Medicaid income.
Lakeview is the second Nebraska nursing home publicly identified on the CMS Special Focus Facility list. The first was Infinia At Florence Heights in Omaha on Nov. 29, 2007, the first time CMS released a public list of deficient nursing homes.
A phone call to the Lakeview director’s office Tuesday afternoon was not returned.
Pat Snyder, director of the Nebraska Health Care Association, which represents long-term health care facilities, said CMS tends to list facilities that “either have repeat deficiencies or just never get everything quite improved upon.”
This is not all bad, she said, because Lakeview will now get twice the attention from the state regulators. The problems at the nursing home could range from too little training to too many new employees.
In the past, before the list was made public, Snyder said, nursing homes placed on the list often improved.
Publicly listing Lakeview, she said, will focus the public’s attention on it, “but many of the residents of that facility are receiving excellent care.”
According to CMS, the extra scrutiny from regulators will continue along with progressive enforcement until the nursing home either significantly improves, shows promising developments or is terminated from Medicare or Medicaid.
Initially, the Bush administration had resisted publishing the full special focus facility list, and last November released only the worst 54 of the total 131 nursing homes.
After a group of Democratic lawmakers began pushing for full disclosure, CMS said Tuesday it was publishing the names after cross-checking information to ensure the release of the most accurate data.
CMS will update its list of troubled nursing homes on a quarterly basis, with its next release scheduled for April.
“This is the latest in a series of steps we will be taking to improve quality and oversight in nursing homes,” said Kerry Weems, CMS acting administrator. “We are issuing more information on special focus facilities to better equip beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to make informed decisions and stimulate robust improvements in nursing homes having not improved their quality of care.”
Out of the 54 nursing homes initially disclosed as poor performers last November, 21 have shown improvement, CMS said, adding that publicity about the problems might have played a factor.
There are about 16,400 nursing homes nationwide, and taxpayers spend about $72.5 billion annually to subsidize nursing home care.
The nonprofit, 57-bed Lakeview was first certified by CMS in 2003, according to the CMS Nursing Home Compare Web site.
The Web site also lists 14 quality care deficiencies at Lakeview. The average at Nebraska nursing homes is eight.
Quality care problems at Lakeview included not keeping residents at the highest quality of life possible, not giving proper treatment to residents with feeding tubes and not making sure each resident’s nutritional needs were met.
The Web site lists seven fire code problems at Lakeview. The state average is two.
Lakeview’s fire inspection problems included not having approved construction materials, not holding quarterly fire drills and not properly maintaining smoke detectors.
The full report on Lakeview and other nursing homes can be found at www.medicare.gov/NHCompare.
Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@journalstar.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.