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Texas Nursing Homes Get Low Rankings from Federal Government

By Beth Janicek

Making the decision to put a loved one in a nursing home can be extremely difficult and sometimes even more difficult is trying to choose the right nursing home. In a previous post about nursing home abuse, I talked about tools for researching nursing homes such as, looking up state-specific inspections, checking the sex offenders’ registry, and talking to current residents and their families. An additional tool that may be a helpful starting point is the national rating system.

USA Today reported on a star rating system the federal government uses to rank nursing homes that receive Medicare funding. The star ratings can help family members who are searching for a nursing home, but there is also the hope that the lower ranked facilities will work to improve their quality of care.

Unfortunately Texas has one of the highest numbers of facilities which received the lowest ranking of only one star. Out of the 1114 Texas homes ranked, 306 received a one-star rating, compare that to only 110 Texas nursing homes which received a five-star rating. These numbers raise more concerns about the quality of care in Texas nursing homes. As I’ve noted before, due to law suit caps in Texas and the lack of any thorough state investigations, our nursing homes are not being held accountable for the poor care they are giving some of our most fragile citizens.

When searching for a nursing home, one of the most important tools is talking to other residents and their family members. In addition, there are a couple of resources that may be helpful for initial evaluations. The Department of Aging and Disability Department has guidelines for choosing a nursing home with contact numbers and links to other researching tools. The Department also has a site where you can look up individual nursing homes and also read how the homes are evaluated. There are good nursing homes in Texas; it just may take a little extra work to find one.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on December 24, 2008 (boomark / email).