In recent Maryland Nursing Home News, the state has received the results of the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report, first ordered by Congress in 2003, to monitor the quality of healthcare, including nursing homes across the country.
The report is published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and according to the study, the overall the quality of Maryland’s health care rates between weak and average.
According to the Ethan Moore, the Health Policy Director of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland, Maryland nursing homes reportedly provided “expert care” in the 2009 study, but the critical issue Moore expects to arise in Maryland’s future is providing the projected explosion of the 65-year and older adult residents with proper Maryland nursing home healthcare and safety in the next twenty years.
Moore stated that Maryland has neither the budget nor capacity to take care of this future increase of seniors in nursing homes—but hopes that the state can find a solution to provide residents with quality care nursing homes and communities that are free from nursing home abuse and neglect in the future.
Maryland reportedly is the only state with an “all-payer rate” system, a quality care system designed in the 1970’s to keep hospital rates of reimbursements on an equal basis to avoid fluctuating health care costs. Moore publicly criticized the all-payer system, claiming that it was both “expensive” and “inadequate” and needs updating to reflect Medicaid reimbursements.
At Lebowitz and Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers, our Maryland Nursing Home Attorneys fight for the rights of residents to experience a nursing home environment that is free from negligence or abuse, and that promotes the health and safety of the resident in Maryland and Washington D.C. Contact us today.
Feds Give Maryland’s Health Care Quality Mixed Reviews, Southern Maryland Online, April 14, 2010
2009 National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Reports
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