As we were putting together the various pages related to the data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (“CMS”), we did not know what information would be interesting for people. We’ve tried to monitor what people click on and note what concerns people raise when they contact us.
One surprise is that we get a lot of traffic to the pages that provide details on the owners or managers of skilled nursing facilities. One reason for this preference is likely that this information is not available from other providers. That is, we are getting traffic to pages that are unique. There are many options for people looking for data on a nursing home, a doctor or hospital, but very few resources for people looking for data on a specific owner or nursing home manager. (In addition to searching on Google, you can also use our nursing home owner/manager search tool or click on any owner on the nursing home detail page.)
For people looking for the entire database of owners along with detailed nursing home data, we do offer custom reporting services for a fee.
It’s Important to Know about Other Owned Skilled Nursing Facilities
Looking up the owner and manager for a specific skilled nursing facility is important. It is important because it gives you a better idea about the overall quality or lack of quality of the management group. One facility may be performing well but if others are not performing equally well or worse if there are indications of abuse, this is an indication that there may be a management issue. Equally if multiple properties are all ranked high, it should make you more comfortable with the facility’s management.
What Information is Available on Nursing Home Owners and Manager?
The owner and manager pages for nursing homes that we have put together pull in all the data that we have been able to find as well as some basic analytics. The most important part of these pages is a list of all the skilled nursing facilities that a company or individual is associated with. In some cases this is a very long list, in other cases is only one or a couple nursing homes. We show the overall 5-star rating for each of the homes, their addresses, and phone number, the number of beds at each home, and each home’s ranking in their local area. Also important are the summaries that we provide for each nursing home owner and manager. The page shows the average overall 5-star rating, the states where the homes are located, and the number and amount of fines. The report also highlights any homes where CMS is warning about abuse.
By studying the list of skilled nursing facilities associated with a particular owner or manager, you can gain a better understanding of the quality of care they provide. This is important because issues that arise at one nursing home can be a warning sign of potential problems at other facilities owned or managed by the same person.
As an example, At one point one of the most visited pages that we had was a ownership page for Bob Dean. Bob owned several nursing homes in and around New Orleans. After Hurricane Ida, he ran into trouble because of the horrible way that he managed the crisis (news article). What is important to see is that there were signs of trouble at several of his properties even before the hurricane. (The state of Louisiana has take all of the skilled nursing facilities away from Bob, so we no longer have an owner page for him. But, you can see the rating history for one of his properties, Landmark of Plaquemine.)
Few Players Control Many Properties
Another important issue to be concerned about is whether the facility you are considering is part of a larger group. There are a few large players in the industry, like American Senior Communities or The Ensign Group, that control a hundreds of nursing homes. This concentrated ownership has good and bad points. Being aware of the situation, whether your homes is part of a large group or is owned by a smaller operator is important to know.
Trouble with These Pages
While we are discussing our work on finding new and interesting data, I would like to vent a moment. There are two things that hold us back from delivering the best value possible, Google.
Most people find our ownership pages by googling a name and clicking on the link. This works well provided that the page has been indexed by Google. Our website currently consists of more than 1.7 million pages of which Google has indexed just under 300,000 pages. According to Google’s search console, they are adding several thousand new pages a week, but it’s going to take long time for them to index everything. (Meanwhile we keep adding pages as we see new ways to show the data.)