Choosing A Nursing Home (NAPSA)—About 3 million Americans depend on nursing homes at some point during each year to provide lifesaving care. How can you best choose the nursing homethatis right for you or a loved one? Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare Website, of course! Nursing Home Compare at www.medicare.gov/NHCompare provides quality ratings for each of the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes. Each facility is rated from a low of one star to a high of five based on quality of care measures. Consulting with a panel of experts from academia, patient advocacy and nursing home provider groups, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the rating system based on a nursing home’s performancein threecritical areas: How facility performed on its health inspection surveys over tem is not intended to be the only tool caregivers can use in selecting the right nursingfacility for a loved one,” said Kerry Weems, CMSacting administrator. Weemsadds that in addition to visiting the site before selecting a facility, people should: Consult with their physician; Talk to the state’s nursing home ombudsman; Talk to the state’s survey and certification office; * Visit the nursing home. Finding Care Options To learn more about all care options, visit www.medicare.gov/ caregivers. The site has information about in-homeservices, nursing homes and alternatives to nursing homes. My Health. My Medicare. time; How the nursing home scored on a set of quality measures; and Whatstaffing levels the nursing home maintains. A five-star designation means the facility rates “much above average”; four stars indicates “above average”; three means “about average”; two is a “below average”rating, with one star indicating that a facility rates “much below average.” The ratings, created by CMS, are updated quarterly. Making Informed Decisions “Because conditions within a nursing home can change, this sys- www.medicare.gov 1-800-MEDICARE TTY 1-877-486-2048. @ so wanes %, 2 SC “ty “bean CENTERS for MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES A new Website lets people compare quality ratings for each of the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes.
