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Nursing Homes: Improved Oversight Needed to Better Protect Residents from Abuse

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Report Type Reports and Testimonies
Report Date June 13, 2019
Release Date July 23, 2019
Report No. GAO-19-433
Summary:

To protect vulnerable nursing home residents from abuse, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts with state agencies—known as survey agencies—that can cite nursing homes for incidents of abuse.

Abuse citations doubled from 2013-2017. We reviewed a 2016-2017 sample of narratives substantiating abuse citations and determined that physical and mental/verbal abuse were more common than sexual abuse, and that perpetrators were often staff.

CMS can't readily access this information, which it could use to improve its oversight by focusing on the most prevalent problems. Our recommendations address this and other issues we found.

Nursing Home Abuse by Type and Perpetrator among the Sample of Narratives in Our Review

Bar chart showing physical and mental/verbal abuse and staff perpetrators most common

Bar chart showing physical and mental/verbal abuse and staff perpetrators most common

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