The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has oversight responsibility for 18,000 nursing homes in the U.S. receiving state or federal support (read money). However, CMS is doing a bad job of punishing those facilities which are providing substandard and negligent care.
According to a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CMS should have terminated the contracts of 55 nursing homes between 2000 and 2002 but failed to terminate contracts in 30 of those cases. This means that almost fifty percent (50%) of the nursing homes which should lose the right to receive federal money to care for the elderly are still receiving the money….and I bet they are still providing poor care.
Read about the study here.