Report: Nursing Home Standards Not Adequately Enforced In U.S.
The federal government’s oversight of nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the U.S. in inadequate, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an investigative branch of congress.
The report reveals that many U.S. nursing homes that have been repeatedly cited for the negligence or mistreatment of its residents often receive minimal penalties. Consequently, some of these facilities don’t always meet federal nursing home standards and guidelines, posing a continuous threat to the health and safety of patients, said the GAO.
According to the report, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department “fails to hold homes with a long history of harming residents accountable for the poor care provided.”
“Some of these homes repeatedly harmed residents over a six-year period and yet remain in the Medicare and Medicaid program,” the report said.
Because of the high number of nursing home negligence and abuse cases, Congress created strict standards for the facilities in 1987. However, in 1998, another GAO report found that the “homes can repeatedly harm residents without facing sanctions.”
In the last several years, a host of new efforts to improve care in nursing homes have been announced by the government and the nursing industry.