Idaho nursing home on watchdog’s list

GOODING, Idaho – A Gooding nursing home was rated the worst in Idaho by a federal watchdog group.

The Gooding Rehabilitation and Living Center is the only Idaho facility to appear on a list of 54 nursing homes nationally that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say deserves special attention because of poor quality of care.

The list, published on a Web site on Thursday, contains 128 nursing homes nationwide listed as “special focus facilities” that consistently provide a poor quality of care, yet show just enough improvement to pass one facility survey and fail the next.

A message left Saturday for Dan Adamson, president of Northwest Bec-Corp., which manages the Gooding facility and four others in south-central Idaho, was not immediately returned.

However, Robert Vande Merwe, executive director of the Idaho Health Care Association, said his group opposes the list. The association represents skilled-nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and similar facilities in the state.

“Most people don’t get off the list unless they end up closing,” Angie Graves, the association’s office manager, told the Times-News of Twin Falls. She said each state is required to have one home on the list. “We don’t see any value in the list, and it’s very unproductive.”

States select the facilities from a list submitted by Medicare.

Chosen facilities are inspected twice as often until they improve, are granted additional time or are dropped from Medicare or Medicaid.

According to Medicare, about 50 percent of such homes significantly improve their quality of care in 24 to 30 months. About 16 percent are terminated from Medicare and Medicaid.

The listing comes as the Gooding facility is under investigation for the Nov. 11 suicide of resident Gerald L. DeCoria, 70, who hanged himself in the center’s behavioral health unit after a series of suicide attempts.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, which conducts inspections for Medicare and Medicaid, has completed an investigation. The results are being examined by state and federal authorities, spokeswoman Emily Simnitt said.

Gooding police also investigated, but plan no action.

The “special focus facility” designation has been used by CMS for about a decade to identify homes that merit more oversight. For these homes, states conduct inspections at six month intervals rather than annually.

The homes on the list got not only the special focus designation, but also registered a lack of improvement in a subsequent survey.

The nursing homes to be cited come from 33 states and the District of Columbia, according to a list obtained by the Associated Press. There are about 16,400 nursing homes nationwide.