Kentucky nursing home injuries are resulting in the loss of Medicare payments for facilities who fail to provide the high standard of care required by federal law. The federal government has implemented a new program which reduces Medicare payments when a nursing home’s “readmission rate” (the rate of their patients requiring a hospital treatment for injury) exceeds national standards. For those who provide exceptional care the government is rewarding them with additional bonuses.
Medicare recently reduced a year’s worth of payments to more than 11,000 nursing homes across the nation, while providing bonuses to 4,000 other facilities. The new system is the next step to expand Medicare’s effort to pay medical providers based upon the quality of care, instead of the instance of medical treatment.
Starting with the fiscal year which began this October, Medicare will reward the best care by increasing compensation by 1.6%, while penalizing almost 2% of the payment to lower performing nursing home facilities.
Last year, nearly 11 percent of nursing home patients were hospitalized due injuries based upon conditions which might have been averted with better medical supervision and patient care (according to Medicare). This is a startling figure, especially when you consider a recent CDC study which shows there are more than 2 falls per bed per facility each year.
Kentucky nursing home injuries are resulting in the loss of Medicare payments for facilities with higher injury rates and lower standards of care. The experienced nursing home injury attorneys at Hargadon, Lenihan & Herrington, PLLC (HLH) represent those who suffer an injury in a fall at a nursing home or extended care facility as well as those who have suffered nursing home neglect. If you or someone you love has been injured in a nursing home or senior care facility we invite you to contact us or call (866) 583-9701 for a free consultation. HLH has served those who are injured as well as the families of wrongful death victims across Louisville and all of Kentucky since 1924.