Five Star Rating System

Five Star Rating System

Check Out New 5-Star Nursing Home Rating System

On December 18, 2008, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new Five-Star Rating System for nursing homes. You can use this system to compare nursing homes in your area on several extremely important indicators of quality:

• Adequacy of nursing staff (including RNs, LPNs, and Nursing Assistants).
• Performance on quality measures—whether they prevent pressure sores, don’t restrain their residents, prevent urinary tract infections, maintain residents’ ability to walk and perform daily activities, treat pain, and don’t catheterize residents for staff’s convenience.
• Performance on inspections.

NCCNHR doesn’t recommend the Five-Star Rating System as a one-stop tool for choosing a nursing home. Neither does CMS. Because there may be errors in the data (some of it is self-reported by nursing homes), or the nursing home may have changed since the information was posted. You need to be sure a nursing home is good before you place a loved one, so it is still critically important to visit the facility; talk to residents, families, and others who have experienced the quality of the care it provides; consult with your state or local ombudsman; and ask the nursing home to share its most recent inspection (survey) report with you. It is required by law to let you see it.

Experts say the system is most accurate at detecting the best (Five-Star) and worst (One-Star) facilities. Use extreme caution in choosing a One-Star or Two-Star home unless you have checked it out very carefully. But don’t choose any nursing home without good research.

For more information about choosing a nursing home, visit: http://www.nccnhr.org/uploads/File/guide_to_choosing_a_nh_-_july07.pdf.

Click here to find and compare nursing homes on the CMS website: Nursing Home Compare. For more information about the Five-Star Rating System, including answers to common questions, see the CMS website: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/13_FSQRS.asp

NCCNHR statement on the Five Star Rating System.