As part of the Trump administration's push to improve nursing home quality transparency, CMS is updating its Nursing Home Compare website to feature a new consumer alert icon next to nursing homes that have been cited for abuse, neglect or exploitation.
Starting Oct. 23, the website will display an alert icon next to facilities where abuse led to patient harm within the past year or where abuse could have potentially harmed residents in the last two years.
"The Trump Administration is putting critical information at consumers' fingertips, empowering them and incentivizing nursing homes to compete on cost and quality," Seema Verma, Administrator of CMS, said in the news release.
The CMS website already offers information on nursing home staffing levels, quality performance and whether a facility meets federal standards. However, finding past abuse citations previously required many steps. The new tool will make it easier to quickly identify facilities with abuse citations.
CMS will update the icons every month so consumers won't have to wait for quarterly updates and nursing homes won't be unnecessarily flagged.
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