Incidents of Maryland nursing home abuse can be challenging to quantify because many victims are unable to report their injuries. Additionally, loved ones are often placed in subpar institutions because their families did not have the means or ability to evaluate the facility adequately. These factors, in addition to many others, have caused a rising rate of nursing home abuse incidents in Maryland.
According to a recent news report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a consumer alert feature on its website designed to warn people of nursing home violations. The CMS operates a website called “Nursing Home Compare,” which provides consumers with information about Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes in the United States. The website enables individuals to see whether a nursing home meets the minimum federal standards regarding things such as staffing, health, and safety. However, the website does not readily provide a way for people to discover any instances or allegations of abuse against a nursing home. In fact, a recent Senate report publicized a government finding of increasing nursing home abuse cases by facilities that rated as poorly performing but did not receive additional scrutiny.
The new alert intends to offer consumers a new and easy way to identify nursing homes with citations and other safety violations quickly. The alert will go live in October, 2019 and will flag facilities that had negative inspection reports on abuse in the past year or behaviors that could have led to harm in the past two years.