SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Several nursing homes and assisted living facilities in South Jersey have consistently rated poorly over the last two years, according to a new report from the state comptroller’s office.
“Daily life at these facilities is filled with all sorts of indignities, from chronically cold meals to excrement-stained rooms,” the report said.
It named six South Jersey nursing homes that have failed to improve substantially over the last two years, earning 0, 1, or 2 stars out of 5 in each quarter, while those businesses collectively received hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding.
“History has shown that, in the absence of some meaningful consequence, many of the lowest-rated nursing homes will not improve,” the report said. “Unless the state meaningfully changes its approach to overseeing and funding these facilities, it will continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on the lowest-rated nursing homes, and Medicaid beneficiaries will continue to suffer the often terrible, frequently dangerous, and sometimes fatal consequences.”
However, Health Care Association of New Jersey CEO Andy Aaronson says the grading system is flawed and the comptroller doesn’t have the expertise required to produce a report like this.
“To have somebody sitting in the comptroller’s office, who frankly doesn’t know much about nursing home operations, … deciding what a good nursing home is and what a bad nursing home is, and not believing what he’s hearing from residents of the nursing home and families of the residents of the nursing home or the Department of Health surveyors who are in the nursing home, for example, and thinking he knows better is just not a good system.”
The South Jersey facilities named were Silver Healthcare Center and Premier Cadbury in Cherry Hill, Palace Rehab and Sterling Manor in Maple Shade, Deptford Center for Rehab, Cedar Grove Nursing in Williamstown, and South Jersey Extended Care in Bridgeton. Several declined to comment on the report. A spokesman from the Deptford Center said patient care and safety is their top priority and they have been working with the state to make lasting positive changes.
Aaronson said the comptroller’s office doesn’t make site visits frequently enough and doesn’t know the industry well enough.
“Frankly, I don’t think the comptroller’s report is very accurate,” Aaronson said.
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He added that the five-star rating system is more for consumers than for regulators because it’s required for some places to receive poor ratings on a bell curve. “It is not a regulatory tool to decide whether a facility is good or bad. There can be very, very good facilities that, for multiple reasons, receive a low star rating.”
He said if a place has a team of specialists for a certain field, they may not be recognized by the rating system if they don’t have nursing certifications, but that doesn’t make them any less skilled at their job, and there is no room for nuance in the five-star rating system.