4 Tips to Assess Nursing Care in Michigan

By Your Health Magazine

Michigan is taking steps to assess its state’s needs, especially as it prepares for the growing elderly population. The state created the Health and Aging Services Administration within the Michigan Department of Health and Services to help support the more than 2 million residents over 60.

The state recognizes the current shortcomings in its programming, especially as the fastest-growing age group in Michigan is 85 and older. The elderly require specialized care, and many families are turning to nursing homes to provide it.

These individuals may need help understanding where to start, and this guide will share four tips for assessing nursing care in Michigan.

1. Review the Medicare Website

Medicare.gov provides a comprehensive list of the 300 nursing homes currently certified by Medicare and Medicaid. You can narrow the list by geographical location, provider type, overall rating, bed count, and more. These filters help make the list more manageable.

Michigan’s worst nursing homes will have the lowest overall rating, indicating that the care patients receive is much below average. The rating will also indicate if there have been any abuse citations at the facility.

Make a short list of the facilities that interest you most and review the ratings in detail. You can explore inspection results, staffing information, quality measures, and more to help you understand why a facility ranked the way it did.

The Medicare website only lists public nursing facilities, so you should expand your search if you are looking for private nursing homes. You can also ask family and friends for recommendations to help you identify local private nursing homes

2. Visit Locations in Person

You’ll want to pay two visits to every nursing home that you’re interested in. The first should be a scheduled visit. You should expect the nursing home to put its best foot forward, showing you all the amenities and care its residents receive. This experience will be highly curated and mimic the overview on the facility’s website.

If you like what you see, revisit the nursing home unexpectedly. This second visit will help you understand what the nursing home is like daily. They won’t have time to prepare for your visit, so the conditions you’ll experience are what your loved one will face.

Take note of the nursing home’s conditions, including how clean it is, whether there are any safety concerns, and whether residents are left unattended. Consider how it smells. If the facility smells of human waste and sickness, it can indicate unsanitary conditions.

Look around at the residents. How do you think your loved one will fit in? Is there diversity and representation? Do they look happy and nourished? These will be your loved one’s peers while in the nursing home.

3. Interview the Nursing Home

The nursing home should be prepared to answer your questions, so make sure to bring a short list of topics on your mind. Examples of questions you may ask include:

Are you Medicare or Medicaid certified?
What is the staff-to-patient ratio?
How many vacancies do you have?
What are the nursing staff’s qualifications?
How many residents per room?
What specialized services will my loved one have access to?
What on-site medical services are available?
Is there an on-call physician?
Are there recreational activities?
How are your meals planned?
Can you accommodate dietary restrictions?

The answers to these questions can help inform your care decisions. For example, if the nursing home is certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, it must provide all patients with 3.48 hours of personalized care daily. That includes 0.55 from a registered nurse, 2.45 from nurses’ aids, and 0.48 from additional staff members.

If the nursing facility has a high number of vacancies or a limited number of registered nurses on staff, that will hinder its ability to meet the minimum federal requirements for care. The facility may not be forthcoming with that information directly, so it may try to hedge questions to skirt the truth.

If a Michigan nursing home cannot answer basic questions, it can be a significant red flag. That is likely not the only information that they are withholding.

4. Read the Reviews

Outside of the CMS, nursing homes often have business pages. Search their page and read the customer reviews. These are usually left directly by patients, family members, and loved ones, which can help you understand what it’s like within the facility.

Compare the public ratings to what you saw on the Medicare website and experience first person. If a facility’s reviews are significantly different, it may cause concern. Some facilities may attempt to inflate their public ratings to distract from prior bad reviews. These public reviews are not as regulated as the official ones.

Conclusion

Michigan nursing homes must meet a minimum standard of care to qualify for federal funding. As the demand for skilled nursing care increases to meet the growing needs of the elderly population, the quality of care may decline as resources are stretched thin.

Check out nursing homes in person to experience them and avoid accidentally sending your loved one to the worst nursing facilities in Michigan.