Section 1:

Missouri nursing home evaluators fail seniors by missing serious problems.

When America’s nursing home evaluators inspect nursing homes, they routinely miss serious problems. That's what the Government Accountability Office says. These serious problems can put our family and our friends that live in nursing homes in real, immediate danger.

Missouri’s nursing home evaluators are among America's worst. They performed worse than most other states’ evaluators, missing serious violations in more than 28% of the inspections that were reviewed by the federal government.

With that percentage, Missouri DHSS earned the third worst score in the nation for missing serious problems -- problems like malnutrition, bedsores, overuse of prescription medications and abuse.

Staff failures, not staff shortages, got Missouri the third worst score in the nation. When Missouri DHSS failed to detect these violations, it wasn't because of staff or resource shortages. Missouri DHSS missed these violations during required state licensing inspections.

During these state licensing inspections, DHSS sends a full team of nursing home investigators into a facility looking for problems. Yet the Government Accountability Office (GAO), found that DHSS missed so many violations so often.