Nursing Home Ratings Go from Bad to Worse In New Mexico’s Second Largest City

By William J. Beerman, Sr.

Residents of Las Cruces, NM have a challenging job ahead of them if they need to choose a nursing home. Eighty-four percent of the city’s certified nursing home beds are in homes that are rated “Below Average” or “Much Below Average,” according to ratings current as of November 26, 2019 on the federal government’s web site, Medicare.gov.

Las Cruces, a city of 102,000, is the second largest city in New Mexico. (If you’re not from Las Cruces, you can learn how to find the ratings and other details about nursing homes in your area by clicking here.)

A recent rating drop from “Average” to “Below Average” for Good Samaritan Society, Las Cruces Village, means four of the six government-certified nursing homes in Las Cruces are now rated “Below Average” or “Much Below Average.” Further, a warning icon (a white palm-out hand in a red circle) has been added to the rating for Casa Del Sol Center to indicate that nursing home has been cited for abuse.

As of late-November, 434 of the city’s 514 government-certified nursing home beds are in homes rated “Below Average” or “Much Below Average,” so uninformed persons choosing a nursing home in Las Cruces have an 84 percent chance of finding themselves or a loved one in a below-average or much-below-average-rated nursing home.

Currently, an estimated 339 people per day are staying in Las Cruces nursing homes that are rated “Below Average” or “Much Below Average.”

In October, three of Las Cruces’ six nursing homes were rated “One Star,” or “Much Below Average,” by Medicare.gov, the federal website that rates nursing homes on a five-star scale. Two of the six were rated “Three Stars” (“Average”) and one was rated “Five Stars,” (“Much Above Average”). I posted details of the ratings prevailing in October in an October 22 article entitled Finding a Nursing Home When Half of the City’s Nursing Homes Are Rated Much Below Average. The article included comments by spokespersons for the New Mexico Department of Health, the management of four of the nursing homes, and one of the city’s two hospitals.

Generally, nursing home spokespersons said Medicare.gov ratings may reflect conditions that have already been corrected; the ratings do not include customer satisfaction data; and the overall ratings are composites of subcategory ratings on matters such as staffing and clinical outcomes that may be higher than the overall rating and particularly important to individual patients. They recommend consumers visit nursing homes as part of the decision-making process. They also recommend searching for customer satisfaction information on the internet rather than relying solely on Medicare.gov.

Regarding the red Abuse icon that appeared on Casa Del Sol’s rating subsequent to the October article, Lori Mayer, a spokesperson for three Las Cruces nursing homes,  said, “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently began flagging skilled nursing centers cited for abuse, neglect, and exploitation. We support making relevant, transparent information available to make informed care decisions.  However, we recommend prospective patients review all information provided by CMS because the flag remains on the site long after the relevant issue has been resolved.” Ms. Mayer is the spokesperson for Casa De Oro and Casa Del Sol, which each have one star (much below average), and for The Village at Northrise, Desert Willow 1, which has five stars (much above average).

Speaking for the State of New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department (ALTSD), Sarah Jacobs, general counsel for ALTSD, provided the following statement after reviewing an advance copy of this article.

“Improving the quality of our long-term care facilities is a top priority for Secretary [Katrina] Hotrum-Lopez and the entire administration.  The Department of Health (DOH) licenses long-term care facilities and oversees their compliance. ALTSD works closely with DOH, through joint protocol to better serve our nursing home residents.

“Additionally, ALTSD runs the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, which is a resident-centered advocacy program that assists residents by protecting their health, safety, welfare, and rights. The Ombudsman Program is also a way to push facilities to improve their quality of care.

“Residents of any long-term care facility in New Mexico also have federally guaranteed rights, including the right to present grievances, the right to be fully informed, and the right to dignity, respect, and freedom. If residents or their families have concerns, they should reach out to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program for assistance — the toll free number is 1-866-451-2901.”

 The October 22 article discussed how a rule change by CMS will require that hospitals discharging patients to nursing homes provide help with discharge planning and selection of an appropriate nursing home or other care provider. The change becomes effective November 29. Nevertheless, choosing will be problematic because the two nursing homes in Las Cruces not rated below- or much-below-average have only 50 and 30 beds respectively.

In October, the three Las Cruces nursing homes rated “One-Star” on the Medicare.gov Five-Star Rating System contained 66 percent of the 514 Medicare- or Medicaid-certified nursing home beds in the city. The three nursing homes continuing into November with a “One-Star” rating are Invigorate Post Acute of Las Cruces, Casa De Oro Center, and Casa Del Sol Center.  Good Samaritan Society — Las Cruces Village, previously rated “Three Stars,” “Average,” dropped to “Two Stars,” “Below Average,” in November.  Welbrook Senior Living, Las Cruces, LLC rose from “Three Stars,” “Average,” to “Four Stars,” “Above Average,” and The Village at Northrise, Desert Willow 1, continues to be rated “Five Stars,” or “Much Above Average.”

Regarding the abuse icon for Casa Del Sol, abuse is defined on Medicare.gov as the willful infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, or punishment with resulting physical harm, pain, or mental anguish. It includes verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse.

More information about nursing homes – including how to look up information about nursing homes in your area –- can be found in the article from October mentioned above. Also, information about nursing homes is available at my website www.wbeerman.com or at my  Facebook page, Nursing Home Monitor

Medicare.gov contains an explanation of its ratings and details about specific nursing homes, including the most recent inspection report.

Copies of this article were emailed in advance directly to selected entities listed in the following paragraph. The list only includes job titles, but the emails were sent to specific named individual office holders to enable them to be aware of the situation described in the articles.

Administrator, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; the two U.S. Senators for New Mexico; a U.S. Senator and a Congresswoman who sponsored the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act of 2019; the U.S. Congresswoman for Las Cruces; the New Mexico Governor, and Secretaries of Health and Aging and Long-Term Services; the chairperson of the New Mexico House Committee on Health and Human Services; a New Mexico State Senator for Las Cruces; a New Mexico State Representative for Las Cruces; the Mayor, City Councilors, and City Councilors-elect for Las Cruces; the American Health Care Association; the New Mexico Health Care Association; the Las Cruces nursing homes mentioned in the articles; and the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.

William J. Beerman, Sr., is the author of the book, “Mary Regina’s Nursing Home,” which is intended to help consumers prepare for a possible nursing home stay for themselves or a loved one, and improve the outcomes of their nursing home experiences.

Author to Discuss Nursing Home Book on Radio Show

William J. Beerman, Sr. has been invited to appear on the “All About Books” radio show on KTAL-LP, 101.5 FM in Las Cruces, NM from 12:30-1 p.m., Friday, November 9. He will talk about his book, “Mary Regina’s Nursing Home,” with host Lynn Moorer.

The book is a journalistic novel that wraps a human-interest story around factual information about nursing homes and the government oversight systems for nursing homes. The wide-ranging book includes coverage of New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas’s lawsuit against a New Mexico nursing home chain. Details about the book are presented on the website https://www.wBeerman.com

 

New Mexico Governor Candidate Has Interest in Fight Against Superbugs

Acting as a member of the Peggy Lillis Foundation’s Advocates Council, I presented Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) with an information packet about the superbug Clostridium Difficile (C. Diff) and other healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

by William J. Beerman, Sr.

I recently had an opportunity to present gubernatorial candidate and New Mexico Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-Albuquerque) with an information packet about an anti-superbug campaign being waged by the Peggy Lillis Foundation (PLF). Rep. Lujan Grisham responded that she would “take a personal interest” in the matter.

Rep. Lujan Grisham expressed concern about superbug Clostridium Difficile (C. Diff) and other healthcare-associated infections (HAI) during a brief meeting with me in Las Cruces, NM, where she took part in a public forum for New Mexico Democratic gubernatorial candidates on May 1.

The PLF is named for Peggy Lillis, a teacher and mother who died from C. Diff in 2010 at age 56.

A former cabinet-level state health official, Rep. Lujan Grisham said she is familiar with the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as C. Diff and other healthcare-associated infections.

“I am a care-giver myself,” she commented. She co-founded the bipartisan Assisting Caregivers Today (ACT) Caucus in Congress. Her experience with caregiving for her mother was outlined in a November 2017 article published on Forbes.com.

Once went undercover in a nursing home

Formerly the New Mexico Secretary of Health and the Director of the New Mexico Agency on Aging, Lujan Grisham went undercover in a nursing home in 1997, posing as a stroke victim, to investigate conditions there. A 2016 campaign ad about her 3 days undercover in the nursing home, where she saw abuse and she herself was neglected, is archived on You Tube.

The information packet I presented to Rep. Lujan Grisham contained information about Senate Bill 2469, which was introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on February 28. Brown’s bill, named the STAAR Act (Strategies to Address Antibiotic Resistance), calls for various actions to address the growing crisis in which an estimated 2 million people get sick each year with antibiotic-resistant infections.

Besides the human suffering, antibiotic resistance takes a toll on the U.S. economy estimated at $20 billion a year in excess healthcare costs and as much as $35 billion in lost productivity.

Another New Mexico member of Congress, Ben Ray Lujan (D-Santa Fe), sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health. He helped develop the 21st Century Cures Act, which overwhelmingly passed Congress and was enacted in December 2016. The law allocates $4.8 billion in funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for cutting-edge scientific research on treatments and cures. The STAAR Act would complement the 21st Century Cures Act by improving the existing surveillance, data collection, and research work to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to current and future antibiotics.

PLF is concerned that many cases of C. Diff go unreported, and the organization wants to make reporting of C. Diff mandatory, including on death certificates.

The STAAR Act facilitates national Center for Disease Control partnership with state health departments through CDC’s Prevention Epicenters Program. Lujan Grisham said her interest will continue if she is elected governor and she foresees roles in fighting HAIs for government agencies and institutions in New Mexico.

PLF points out that C. Diff is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in healthcare settings. It caused nearly 500,000 infections in one year, and 29,000 deaths. Seventeen percent of C. Diff cases occur in nursing homes and 22 percent in hospitals. Only 7 percent are completely unrelated to health care.  In nursing homes, the infection interferes with residents’ rehabilitation therapy and recovery as it causes uncontrollable diarrhea, fever, nausea, abdominal cramping, dehydration, loss of appetite, and death in some cases. Ninety percent of Americans who die from a C. Diff infection are 65 or older.

More information is available in blog posts on my website about nursing homes, https://wbeerman.com and at the following PLF websites:

www.Makecdiffcount.org

https://peggyfoundation.org/

Appeals court upholds $2.5 million award

New Mexico Appeals Court Upholds $2.5 Million Jury Award to Family in Nursing Home Case.

The decision, by the Court of Appeals of the State of New Mexico, came in the case of the Estate of Inez Martinez vs the Las Cruces, NM nursing home, Village at Northrise (VNR) and parent companies.

On April 15, 2010, Inez Martinez, age 82, was admitted to VNR where she was to recuperate from pacemaker implantation surgery for an anticipated stay of 20 days, according to the court decision. She was discharged on May 5, 2010, by order of her attending physician, who was credentialed to see patients at the facility. Martinez died shortly thereafter as a result of sepsis caused by a wound infection (staph) at her incision, according to the court decision.

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