In his latest information bulletin, disability lawyer Steve Gold reviews the CMS Nursing Home Data Compendium, 2005. Below is the information bulletin.

Nursing Facility Data - Information Bulletin #106A, (4/06)

The CMS Nursing Home Data Compendium, 2005, is now available, and it
provides useful information for disability advocates. CMS collects this
data primarily from two sources - the Minimum Data Set (MDS) (data
provided quarterly for each nursing home resident from nursing homes) and
from OSCAR (data collected from CMS's own surveys and certifications).
Also, all of this data is available for your state.

This Information Bulletin focuses on the institutional characteristics of
the nursing facilities. The next one will focus on how the residents are
actually treated.

1. Large Institutions:

In 2005, there were 16,489 nursing facilities (down from 17,183 in
1996). 84% had more than beds. Nursing facilities with 100+ beds made up
48% of the total facilities. (Table 1.1.(e)). To refer to these
institutions as "homes" is grossly inaccurate.

The 100+ bed nursing facilities have more than 2.8 million beds, where
the less than 50 bed facilities have only 300,000 beds. Therefore, the
largest institutions (50+ beds) control 89% of the total nursing facility
beds. (Table 2.1).

As far as size, these are clearly institutions.

2. Age of residents:

The national breakdown by residents' ages is interesting. (Table
2.5.(e)).

A. Nationally, persons ages 0-30 comprised 0.6 % (nearly 19,000
persons) of the total number of residents in nursing facilities, and CA,
NV, UT, IL, AR, AZ, HI, NB, NJ, NY, OR had the highest percentages
throughout the country. Why do states have any persons under 30
institutionalized, let alone nearly 19,000?

B. Persons ages 31-64 years comprised 12% (370,000) of the total
residents, and Alaska, IL, LA, Arizona, CA, DC, NV, and UT had the highest
percentages. Why have not states successfully diverted younger persons
back to the community?

C. Persons 65-74 years made up 15.4% of the total number of
residents, and DC, Alaska, UT, NV, SC, WV, TN, AL, KY had the highest
percentages. Isn't it time disability advocates recognized that all
persons, including those under 74, should be offered community-based
services?

3. Beds and State Populations:

One way to compare your state's nursing facility industry with other
states is by the number of beds per 1000 state residents.(Table 1.5).
Nationally, there were 5.8 nursing facility beds per 1000 residents. The
states with the most nursing facility beds per 1000 were Iowa(11.3), ND,
and SD, and those with the fewest beds were Alaska (1.1), NV and WA.
However, the range among states was stark. Do the differences reflect the
strength of the nursing facility industry in your state? Again, does your
nursing facility trade association contribute money to your elected
officials and receive beds as pay backs?

4. Occupancy rates:

Occupancy rates also varied a lot. (Table 1.4). In 2004, 84.2% of the
beds were occupied, as compared to 85.9% in 1996. The states with the
least occupied beds were OR (66%) and OK (66%); the states with the most
occupied were VR (95%) and RI (92%). The following states had fewer
occupied beds for EACH of the past four years than the national average:
Ariz, Ark, CO, ID, IL, IN, LA, Missouri, Montana, OK, OR, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Why have not these states decertified beds, closed them down, and have the
Money Follow the Persons. They do NOT need so many nursing facility beds.
Why is there such an enormous spread among the states? Does your nursing
facility trade association contribute money to your elected officials and
in return your state permits more beds than are needed? What's the deal?

Here is the 2004 occupancy breakdown by State:

National Average 84.2%
Alabama 88.1%
Alaska 79.4%
Arizona 78.2%
Arkansas 73.3%
California 85.0%
Colorado 81.8%
Connecticut 91.7%
Delaware 84.1%
D. C. 90.7%
Florida 88.5%
Georgia 88.7%
Hawaii 87.9%
Idaho 77.6%
Illinois 78.9%
Indiana 82.3%
Iowa 82.7%
Kansas 83.7%
Kentucky 87.3%
Louisiana 75.3%
Maine 91.2%
Maryland 84.2%
Massachus 89.1%
Michigan 87.7%
Minnesota 91.6%
Mississippi 87.9%
Missouri 74.6%
Montana 75.1%
Nebraska 82.6%
Nevada 84.6%
New Hampshire 90.0%
New Jersey 87.7%
New Mexico 83.9%
New York 93.2%
North Carolina 87.3%
North Dakota 91.9%
Ohio 86.5%
Oklahoma 65.6%
Oregon 66.3%
Pennsylvania 89.4%
Rhode Island 92.4%
South Carolina 90.1%
South Dakota 92.3%
Tennessee 87.4%
Texas 75.1%
Utah 70.1%
Vermont 94.9%
Virginia 89.3%
Washington 84.9%
West Virginia 88.4%
Wisconsin 88.2%
Wyoming 80.6%

Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at
http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects. To
contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com