Section 5:

What we know.

We know nursing home abuse and neglect often isn't reported, but even when it is reported, abuse and neglect rarely lead to punishment: Missouri DHSS's own statistics show that only 10% of claims of abuse, neglect, and other regulatory violations actually result in DHSS citing a facility. With total investigations nearing 6000 a year in 2005, that’s only around 600 citations each year.

We know that even when teams of DHSS investigators inspect nursing homes, they regularly miss serious problems: The GAO established that Missouri ranks near the bottom because its nursing home evaluators missed serious problems in 28% of reviewed inspections.

And we know that DHSS is slow to investigate problems and even slower to cite nursing home for those problems: As referenced in SECTION 3, DHSS regional manager Pam Clark told the Post-Dispatch that they’re way behind in complaint investigations. She says that because they are so far behind, they investigate the most serious claims first, while the others get to wait.

But even with DHSS saying they make complaints of serious, immediate harm their priority, 9 of 10 investigations end up with nothing happening to the nursing home.

Do you think it’s likely that 5400 or so of the nearly 6000 Elder Abuse and Neglect Hotline calls and other complaints are baseless, or does DHSS under-cite in its nursing home complaint investigations?