One in five nursing homes receive poor quality ratings, analysis finds

USA Today: "One in five of the nation's 15,700 nursing homes have consistently received poor ratings for overall quality, a USA Today analysis of new government data finds. More than a quarter-million patients live in homes given another set of low scores within the past year, according to data released today by Medicare, which first released the star ratings of the nation's nursing homes in late 2008. The ratings are derived from inspections, complaint investigations and other data collected mostly in 2008 and 2009. ... nearly all homes that repeatedly received few overall stars — one or two stars — were owned by for-profit corporations, the data show." USA Today also includes a searchable database of homes (Gillum, 1/28).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.