Nursing Home Star Rating System

 

 

 

What Is The Nursing Home Star Rating System?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created the Five-Star Quality Rating System to help consumers, their families, and caregivers compare nursing homes more easily and to help identify areas about which you may want to ask questions.

 

The Nursing Home Compare website now features a rating system that will give each nursing home a rating of between 1 and 5 stars.  Nursing Home Star Ratings compare nursing homes with one another. The ratings are based on minimum standards.

Nursing homes with 5 stars are considered to have well above average quality and nursing homes with 1 star are considered to have quality well below average.  There is one overall 5-star rating for each nursing home, and a separate rating for each of the 3 performance measures (Health Inspections, Staffing, and Quality Measures) that make-up the overall rating. 

	Well Above Average
	Above Average
	Average
	Below Average
	Well Below Average

 

• Health Inspections
  The health inspection rating contains information from the last 3 years of onsite inspections, including both standard surveys and any complaint surveys.  This information is gathered by surveyors or individuals who make unannounced visits to the nursing home and follow a specific process to determine the extent to which a nursing home has met Medicare's minimum quality requirements. Federal staff train state surveyors and oversee state performance.   However, while control systems are designed to optimize consistency in the survey process, there remains some variation between states due to differences in survey management, state licensure and Medicaid policy.
• Staffing
  The staffing rating includes information about the number of hours of care on average provided to each resident each day by nursing staff.  This rating does consider differences in the level of need of care of residents in different nursing homes.  For example, a nursing home with residents who have more severe needs would be expected to have more nursing staff than a nursing home where the resident needs were not as high.  This data is reported by the nursing home for the two weeks prior to the unannounced annual survey, and may not be indicative of staffing ratios throughout the year.
• Quality Measures
  The quality measure rating contains information on 10 different physical and clinical measures for nursing home residents - for example, the percentage of residents with moderate to severe pain and changes to resident's mobility.  This information is collected by the nursing home (i.e. self-reported) on all residents and provides information about how well nursing homes are caring for their residents' physical and clinical needs. 

Nursing Home ratings will remain in effect for one year.  However, turnover in key administrative staff can affect quality of care fairly quickly.  Just because a facility received 5 stars on its annual inspection does not mean that it is still providing 5-star care throughout the year. Conversely, the same holds true for a 1 star facility. Such a facility might improve over the course of a year. Be sure to use the rating in conjunction with other indicators of quality care.

For in-depth descriptions of the ratings and the methods used to calculate them, use the links below.

* Information courtesy of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

 

How Do I Find Out the Star Rating for a Facility?

• First, you will go to the Nursing Home Compare website. You will be able to search for facilities by name, city, county, state, or ZIP code.
• The search information for each facility you select will give you information on the Five Star Quality Rating, health inspection results, nursing home staff data, quality measures, and fire safety inspection results.

 

Also, note that since:

• there are some differences in how different states carry out the inspection process, even though the standards are the same across the country
• there are differences in state licensing requirements that affect quality
• there are differences in state run Medicaid programs that pay for a significant amount of the care provided in nursing homes

the best comparisons are made by looking at nursing homes within the same state. Be aware of the above points if you are trying to compare a nursing home in one state with a nursing home in another state.

 

How Can Caregivers Use This Information?

Add it to how well the facility did per the Choosing a Facility Checklist, your in-person visits, input from residents, and other factors such as how far the facility is from where you live, whether the resident will be able to continue to use his or her own doctor, and whether or not your family member likes the facility. Use all the various types of information as tools to help you make the best decision. Do not rely on the star rating system alone.

 

 

 

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