A statement was issued by the President of the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care (AQNHC) in response to the New York Times Article released on Sunday in which the AQNHC surprisingly refuses to condemn the practice of providing less than quality care while simultaneously using corporate shells to operate long-term care facilities and avoid accountability. The AQNHC, a group committed to improving the quality of long-term care nationwide, takes the unsupported position that care in America’s nursing homes is improving overall, noting that the New York Times focused their analysis on only 10% of our nation’s nursing homes.
The AQNHC does not deny that care is being sacrificed at these private equity owned homes, nor do they condemn this practice. Further, AQNHC is non-responsive to the issue of accountability where the owners of long-term care facilities - those who reap the profits - are not held accountable for bad care.
Is the AQNHC applauding this practice or not responding at all? One would expect an organization that is engaged in improving care in our nation’s nursing homes to condemn a practice by profit seekers who cut resident services and staff, decreasing the overall quality of care provided to residents.
Instead, the AQNHC lauds the profession’s “demonstrated commitment to public data disclosure,” and transparency, asserting that nursing homes make data available for potential residents to assess the quality of the facility. However, AQNHC forgets that long-term care facilities’ receipt of Medicare funds is conditioned upon reporting this data, making such reporting essentially government mandated.
In essence, the AQNHC applauds long-term care facilities who participate in a government mandated regulatory scheme with no regard for the bad care residents suffer when profits are put ahead of people.
Click here for the statement.
