Nursing Home Guide: Medicare’s Nursing Home Checklist

In order to choose the best nursing home or long-term care facility for your loved one, Medicare offers several tools to compare facilities, look up facility rankings and to learn more about each individual facility. Medicare also offers a comprehensive nursing home guide – a checklist for families to help them choose a facility. The full checklist can be found HERE.

Some important checklist items to look for include:

• Does the Nursing Home have the level of care I need?
• Does the nursing home offer specialized services, such as a special unit for a resident with Alzheimer’s or other dementia?
• Are residents clean, well groomed, and appropriately dressed for the season or time of day?
• Is the nursing home free from overwhelming unpleasant odors?
• Does the nursing home appear clean and well kept?
• Does the relationship between staff and residents appear warm, polite and respectful?

Critical checklist items to make sure you ask the nursing home about include:

• Is there a licensed nursing staff 24 hours a day, including a Registered Nurse (RN) present at least 8 hours per day, 7 days a week?
• Will a team of nurses and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) work with me to meet my needs?
• Does the nursing home check to make sure they don’t hire staff members who have been found guilty of abuse, neglect or mistreatment of residents?
• Does the facility ensure that their staff members have no history or finding of abuse, neglect or mistreatment of residents in the state nurse aid registry?
• Has the nursing home corrected all deficiencies (failures to meet state or Federal requirements) in its last state inspection report?

While you’re visiting the nursing home, ask a member of the resident council if you can attend a resident council or family council meeting. These councils are usually organized and managed by the residents or the residents’ families to address concerns and improve the quality of care and life for the resident.

It’s a good idea to visit the nursing home at least twice. Make sure that your second visit to the nursing home is on a different day of the week and at a different time of day than your first visit. Staffing can be different at different times of the day and on weekends.

If you suspect that your loved one is being abused or neglected in a nursing home, it is important to find an attorney who can help you. Making timely complaints to the Illinois Department of Public Health, as well as Medicare and other regulatory agencies is critical. Your lawyer can help guide you through this process and help protect the rights of your loved one.