Six KY nursing homes are on a formerly unpublished list of 400 poor performers around the nation
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
The U.S. senators from Pennsylvania have released a report that includes the names of nearly 400 nursing homes with a “persistent record of poor care” that had not previously been publicly available.
Of the six Kentucky facilities on the poor-performers list, only Twin Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Owensboro is getting additional oversight. (Photo from Owensboro Times)
Six are in the Commonwealth, including one in Northern Kentucky:
Klondike Center and Springhurst Health and Rehab in Louisville; River Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Paducah; Woodcrest Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Elsmere; Mountain Manor of Paintsville; and Twin Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Owensboro.
Some issues listed in the report specific to the Kentucky nursing homes were failure to provide prescribed medication and treatments, failure to inform providers when the treatments were missed, and failure to provide appropriate burn-wound care, which resulted in a state inspector finding the individual “lying in bed with a large amount of green drainage on dressing and a pool of green drainage on the bed sheets.”
Pennsylvania’s senators, Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Pat Toomey, released the list after questioning why the federal government only shares a list of about 80 failing nursing homes that get special oversight until their issues are resolved, and not the list of nearly 400, which also qualify for the oversight program, but aren’t included because of “limited resources.”
The 80 nursing homes that get the additional oversight are “special focus facilities” and are identified on the federal Nursing Home Compare website with a small yellow triangle. Those on the list of 400 are candidates for this special program, but are not identified in any way on the website as nursing homes that provide persistently poor care.
The senators’ report says, “Despite being indistinguishable from participants in terms of their qualifications for enhanced oversight, candidates are not publicly disclosed. As a result, individuals and families making decisions about nursing home care for themselves or for a loved one are unlikely to be aware of these candidates.”
Owensboro’s Twin Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is the Kentucky’s only “special focus facility” on the list. The report says that the only parties who have known if a nursing home is a candidate to be a special-focus facility are the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the government of the state in which the nursing home is based, and the facility itself.
The report says CMS has not consistently updated these nursing homes’ data on Nursing Home Compare; it says nine are listed as having perfect scores for staffing and quality of care.
Further, it says that the nursing homes that are considered special-focus candidates do not face additional oversight, are not surveyed more frequently, nor are they “subject to more rigorous enforcement actions, additional disclosure or reporting requirements.”
“There is no information on Nursing Home Compare explaining the reason for a facility’s participation in the program, the length of time it has been in the program or whether it has improved,” the report said.
About 1.3 million Americans live in 15,600 nursing homes, according to CMS.
Salyersville nursing home is great
Woodland oaks health care in Ashland Kentucky should be on that list! My father was there,and passed away January 20018 he had dementia,and couldn’t walk,or feed himself they handed him a hot cup of coffee knowing full well he could not hold it he dropped it on his lap received 2nd degree burns on his intire upper thigh two weeks later it was green and oozing, when I took the bandage off it was horrible! I went straight to the nurse,and made a complaint,and told her he was unresponsive she checked his blood pressure it was very low she told me they was going to send him to wound care the following week that they had been treating it wrong, I called an ambulance and got him straight to the hospital the Dr. Couldn’t believe that they had let him lay there like that,nor could me,and my family!!!!! A month later he passed away!
My Grandmother was there and passed away a few years ago from cancer. A family member was there visiting her one night. She was in alot of pain and was a bit agitated. The nurse came in and gave her a shot of something that was suppose to relax her and told the family member he could go home for the evening. Shortly after he got home, he got a call telling him to come back. My grandmother had passed away after she received this shot. DO NOT PUT YOUR LOVED ONES IN THIS PLACE!!!!!!!!!
This is downright disgusting, the elderly have lived their lives as productive citizens to be reduced to neglect. I work in healthcare, and I see bad employees as well as facilities that are short staffed, more concerned about money than with hiring enough quality nurses and CNAs.
This is so sad I have been a CNA 13 years. I have seen and worked for some bad people its all about the money not the residents. That is unbelievable. I always put the needs of the elderly first. Clean up the nursing homes. Hire hard working people with Big hearts not fresh out of school. Having no clue whats going on and if you do hire nebeeeees. Train them right with workers who have been there along time. And it seems the nursing homes know when state is coming so they jave plenty of time to fix things. Hummmmm
Salyersville nursing home is nasty, the patients are not kept clean. Nurse will false chart to cover themselves and the DON will cover for the nurses. They will leave the patients in the jury chairs at the nurses desk all night with no one there to watch them and they have been known to over medicate so they will not be bothered with the patient. Experience from a loved one that didn’t take us long to remove them from that nasty facility.
Is there a decent nursing home in Eastern Kentucky?
My experience with nursing homes has been enlightening. It is sad what the patients go through. My brother gad Parkinson’s and dementia. He was admitted to Riverview in Prestonsburg and that went good until he became combative. The nurses or aides would holler at him and scare him and he would become agitated. He thought they were going to hurt him so he would try to get away from them. They refused to keep him and he was shifted from one facility to another until he ended up in Ohio. Not one nursing home would take him because he was labeled combative. All he needed was a nursing staff that knew how to treat and care for patients with dementia. They are lost and scared. He ended up dying after a facility there medicated him so he would not be trouble to them and he aspirated and became brain dead. I believe nursing homes that accept Medicare and Medicaid as payment should not be permitted to refuse a patient AND there should be homes specialized for dementia and Alzheimer patients. Why is our government not taking care of these issues?
This is a shame. Some of the staff at JJ Jordan need to go. Don’t hand them a tray and say aren’t you going to eat. Feed them that’s what you’re getting paid for. When you know they can’t feed themselves. This is so sad. There is good staff at JJ’s but knowing that one elder.y person isn’t being fed kills me.