Choosing a nursing home

Choosing a nursing home can be a daunting task.  It’s difficult enough to be considering a long term care or nursing home placement for a family member; it’s even more difficult to know how facilities vary and what might be important.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) sponsors a website, Medicare Compare, that summarizes and presents data collected from a variety of governmental inspection and assessment reports.  The information is available to anyone with internet access and the website design allows comparisons between different facilities in your neighborhood. 

On the website, four steps are recommended for people choose a nursing home:

Step 1: Find Nursing Homes in your area (on the website).

The website prompts you to specify a particular facility you might be considering or to select a geographical area you might consider.  All the Medicare-approved facilities within the specified zip code or county will be listed in a chart along with their data.  You can sort by the parameters or data elements that may be of interest to you; the facilities with the best staffing ratios, for example.

Step 2: Compare the quality of the nursing homes you're considering.

The data elements in the quality comparison include the Five-Star Quality Ratings, health inspection results, nursing home staff data, quality measures, and fire safety inspection results.  While you might feel that the data is not comprehensive or that the information of most interest to you is not included, the comparison of all facilities does provide a way to get an overview of the facilities available in your community. 

Step 3: Visit the nursing homes you're considering or have someone visit for you.

Step 4: Choose the nursing home that best meets your needs.

The USDHHS recommends talking to your doctor or other healthcare practitioner, your family, friends, or others about your nursing home choices; they may have additional information or recommendations for you.