Med Mal News

In January, the State of California became the first to require nursing homes to post their ratings so that patients and their families will know the quality level of each facility. The subject grades were conferred by the Department of Public Health, beginning in 2008. The assessments, ranging from one star (the lowest rating) to five stars (the highest rating), reflect measurements of staffing levels, quality of care, and inspection findings. There are critics on both sides of the facilities-ranking divide, with patient advocates arguing that more recent quality-of-care failures are not reflected in the ratings. Nursing home care providers disagree with the legislation's mandated distribution of the star ratings: The number of facilities that could be awarded the highest rating was set at just 10% of all nursing homes, 20% were required to be given the lowest ranking and the three middle catagories were also rigidly set at a certain percentage levels. This system, they say, caused some nursing care facilities to be unfairly punished or rewarded for being near the margins of each level.