Families for Better Care is a “non-profit citizen advocacy group dedicated to creating public awareness of the conditions in the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care settings and developing effective solutions for improving quality of life and care.” According to Families, Idaho no longer ranks in the top-ten states for nursing home care.

Families “Nursing Home Report Card” uses data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, performance measures utilized in Medicare and Medicaid’s Nursing Home Compare and the Office of State Long-Term Ombudsman complaint data. Basically, Families looks at lots of data and comes up with letter grades for the states. This link will take you to the page describing exactly how Families does its evaluation.

Let’s look at Idaho’s Report Card. In 2013, Idaho received an overall grade of “A” and was in the top ten states in the nation with a rank of 8th. In 2014, Idaho receives an overall grade of “B” and therefore is no longer in the top ten states, instead, Idaho now ranks 15th in the nation.

I think Families’ most disturbing findings are that “Severe deficiencies in Idaho nursing homes swelled 11 percent over the last year, pushing the number of potentially dangerous nursing homes to nearly one in every two” and “Verified ombudsman complaints increased 10 percent over the previous year, indicative of growing problems in nursing homes.”

What does this say about Idaho nursing home facilities? It says they are not as safe as they were. If you or a loved one is injured in an Idaho nursing home or assisted living facility, consider contacting the attorneys of Kormanik Hallam & Sneed LLP to discuss your potential options.