31 Colo. Nursing Homes Receive Lowest Rating From Federal Gov't

ACROSS COLORADO – The federal government has given 31 nursing homes in Colorado a one-star rating after tweaking the way it assesses thousands of nursing homes nationwide. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month revised its inspection process and began providing improved staffing details and new quality metrics. The changes were aimed at providing more transparent and meaningful information about the quality of care that residents receive.

Below are the ratings for each low-rated nursing home in Colorado as of April 24, according to the agency’s Nursing Home Compare tool. The site provides detailed information about every Medicare-certified nursing home in America. Nursing homes with five stars are considered to have above-average quality while those with one star are considered to have below-average quality.

• ALPINE LIVING CENTER, Thornton
• APPLEWOOD LIVING CENTER, Longmont
• ASPEN LIVING CENTER, Colorado Springs
• BEAR CREEK CENTER, Morrison
• BERTHOUD LIVING CENTER
• BOULDER MANOR
• CASTLE ROCK CARE CENTER
• CENTURA HEALTH PROGRESSIVE CARE CENTER, Canon City
• COLORADO VETERANS COMMUNITY LVG CTR AT HOMELAKE, Monte Vista
• ELMS HAVEN CENTER, Thornton
• FORT COLLINS HEALTH CARE CENTER
• GLENWOOD SPRINGS HEALTH CARE
• HILLCREST CARE CENTER
• KENTON MANOR, Greeley
• LAKEWOOD VILLA
• LOWRY HILLS CARE AND REHABILITATION, Aurora
• MINNEQUA MEDICENTER, Pueblo
• MISSION SAN MIGUEL NURSING AND REHAB CENTER, Commerce City
• PALISADES LIVING CENTER
• PIONEER HEALTH CARE CENTER, Rocky Ford
• REHABILITATION AND NURSING CENTER OF THE ROCKIES, Fort Collins
• ROCK CANYON RESPIRATORY AND REHABILITATION CENTER, Pueblo
• SEDGWICK COUNTY MEMORIAL NURSING HOME, Julesburg
• SIERRA VISTA HEALTHCARE CENTER, Loveland
• SPRING CREEK HEALTH CARE CENTER, Fort Collins
• STERLING LIVING CENTER
• THE PARKER SUITES, Parker
• SUNDANCE SKILLED NURSING AND REHABILITATION, Colorado Springs
• UNION PRINTERS HOME, Colorado Springs
• WOODRIDGE TERRACE NURSING AND REHABILITATION, Commerce City
• YUMA LIFE CARE CENTER

Notably, the agency is once again providing health inspection ratings, which were recently unfrozen. Now, every long-term care facility has had an opportunity to answer questions using the new survey process, according to CMS.

The threshold for staffing levels is also much more stringent now. Under the previous method, automatic one-star ratings (out of five) would be doled out to nursing homes that reported having no registered nurse on site for at least seven days in a quarter. That threshold has since been lowered to four days.

Nursing homes provide round-the-clock care to people who can’t be cared for at home and staffing has the “greatest impact” on the quality of care, the federal agency said — more staff, better quality. The updates will hopefully improve quality industry-wide, the agency said, and give consumers more confidence in their decisions.

“CMS is committed to safeguarding the health and safety of nursing home residents by ensuring they are receiving the highest quality of care possible,” agency Administrator Seema Verm said in a news release.

The changes appear to have had a wide-ranging effect. There are more than 15,000 Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing homes in the country, and the CMS doled out one-star ratings to over 1,600 of them, according to Kaiser Health News. Most were reportedly downgraded because payroll records showed no registered nurse hours for at least four days. Other homes reportedly failed to submit payroll documents or couldn’t be verified.

CMS is a federal agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It administers the Medicare program and works with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and health insurance portability standards.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.