The federal government recently announced that it will soon become more difficult for nursing homes to earn coveted four- and five-star ratings. Currently, homes are rated on a scale from one to five; their scores are made available to the public on this website. The rating system has been criticized in the past, with its detractorts claiming it relies too heavily on unverified data provided by the nursing homes themselves and not audited by the government.Nursing homes in response have expressed concern that the new rating system will send the wrong message to customers, with one representative stating that if scores plummet suddenly under the new standards, patients and their families will think that quality has declined, even if the homes have actually improved.
