Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect in New York: 6 facilities on the recently updated Special Focus Facilities Initiative

To prevent nursing home neglect or abuse, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the States send teams of inspectors to survey nursing homes on a regular basis to assure that facilities meet the quality of care standard required by Medicare and Medicaid.

These teams look for deficiencies in the quality of care provided to their elderly patients and for deficiencies in the safety requirements such as protection from fire hazards. Most nursing homes have some deficiencies. The national average of deficiency per inspection is 6 to 7 per nursing home. However a minority of nursing homes have more than twice the average number of deficiencies and have more serious problem than others, including reports of harm and injury to patients.

Nursing homes that have a pattern of serious problems for more than 3 years are enlisted in the Special Focus Facility Initiative and can be barred from Medicare and Medicaid participation if they don’t address their problems within a reasonable period of time.

6 New York Nursing Homes are on this list:

The Blossom South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rochester, New York has been on the SFF list for 32 months and according to the most recent inspection, the nursing home has failed to show significant improvement. According to the most recent news, the nursing home is about to close.
The troubled Rosewood Heights nursing home in Syracuse, has been on the SFF list for 22 month and according to Syracuse.com it will be closed this year and turned into apartments. Last October a nursing assistant was charged with harming a disabled resident.

On a more positive note 4 other New York nursing homes have recently “graduated” from the SFF program because they have made significant improvements in quality of care on a continuous basis over time. These nursing homes are Mercy Living Center in Tupper Lake, NY, Pleasant Valley in Argyle, NY, Van Duyn Home and Hospital in Syracuse, NY and Wingate at Beacon, Beacon, NY.

Click here to download the recently updated Special Focus Facility Initiative for all US.
Click here to visit our Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect webpage