Which Care Is Better: For-Profit or Non-Profit Nursing Homes?
It’s an act of trust to place the care of your loved one in others’ hands. When you’re evaluating nursing home care quality, does it matter whether the facility is a for-profit or non-profit facility? Yes it does, and that is a fact!
The Center for Medicare Advocacy reports that ownership structure makes a big difference. When researchers compared the top for-profit nursing homes with other types of homes, the for-profit homes had major struggles:
- lowest nursing staff levels
- highest number of care deficiencies
- highest number of deficiencies that cause harm to residents
Now, it doesn’t take a research study to make the leap that this disparity leads to nursing home abuse. The largest expense in a nursing home is staff. If a corporation is looking to improve profits, then staff gets cut — and that means nursing home care quality suffers.
The research showed that non-profit nursing homes excelled in four vital areas:
- staffing (there was more staffing and it was better quality)
- fewer residents with pressure ulcers
- lower use of restraints
- fewer citations for poor care
These facts illustrate the point clearly: staff matters, in both numbers and quality.
There are many factors to take into consideration when choosing a nursing home. And it’s hard to imagine that your loved one could be the victim of nursing negligence. So remember to consider the type of home — for-profit or non-profit — it makes a difference.