Ohio Nursing Homes Meet Quality Standards
Nearly every nursing home in Ohio has met the state’s minimum requirements for full Medicaid reimbursement.
In order to qualify for full Medicaid funding, Ohio nursing homes have to satisfy at least 5 out of 20 quality incentive measures, which were first proposed last year by a special advisory council.
According to a post on the Ohio Department of Aging‘s website, all but five of the nearly 1,000 nursing homes in Ohio were able to meet that standard. The majority of nursing homes (549 nursing homes) satisfied at least 11 of the quality measures.
Direct-Care Worker Staffing Measures
Among the 20 quality incentive measures instituted by Ohio are four related to the direct-care workforce:
- Consistent Assignment — Nursing homes must adopt a policy prohibiting more than eight different nursing aides from caring for any one consumer in a 30-day period.
- Staff Retention — A nursing home’s retention rate must stay above 75 percent for the calendar year.
- Staff Turnover — Direct-care workers’ turnover rate must not exceed 65 percent.
- Aide Participation in Care Conferences — A direct-care worker must be present for at least half of the resident care conferences held in a nursing home.
Many of the quality incentive measures, including those pertaining to direct-care workers, were influenced by research from organizations such as the Pioneer Network and Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes.
– by Matthew Ozga
