Unwanted transfers or discharges from a nursing home can be devastating for residents, affecting their physical health and safety, as well as their psychological well-being. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), inappropriate discharges can cause residents to be “uprooted from familiar settings,” thereby impeding relationships with staff, other residents, and family members. Sadly, reports even indicate that, despite the fundamental requirement that a discharge be safe and appropriate, some nursing homes are discharging residents to homeless shelters. In a recent (2017) memorandum, CMS acknowledged that “facility-initiated discharges continue to be one of the most frequent complaints made to State Long Term Care Ombudsman Programs.
”Below are links to individual files, for each state, listing all of the nursing homes in the state that have received a citation for failure to “”permit residents to remain in the facility and not be transferred or discharged without adequate reason.” The data include all citations for the last three years (as of January 2018). They were downloaded from data.medicare.gov in February 2018.
Each file is searchable by facility name, city, zip code, etc… Please see the “Notes” tab in each state file for more information about the data provided.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Though facility-initiated discharges are a serious and frequent complaint, state survey agencies rarely hold facilities accountable for inappropriate or unsafe discharges. If you believe that the data for your state indicates inadequate enforcement of transfer and discharge protections, we encourage you to contact your State Agency and/or the CMS Regional Office that oversees your state.
Contact information for State Survey Agencies: https://nursinghome411.org/contact-information-for-state-survey-agencies-2017/.
Contact information for CMS Regional Offices: https://nursinghome411.org/cms-contacts-regional-central-office-2017/.
LTCCC Issue Alert on Transfer & Discharge Protections: https://nursinghome411.org/ltccc-issue-alert-transfer-and-discharge-requirements/