What Red Flags Should I Look for When Looking at Nursing Home Reviews?

Each year, many of us make the hard decision to place close family members in an assisted living facility where they can receive more attentive, dedicated care than we can offer at the given time.

When a need emerges, one of the first places most of us look nowadays when considering our options is online. We do so with the expectation that amidst all the feedback individuals readily give regarding their experience with a company, there will be some valuable insight that will aid us in making the right decisions about how to care for our loved ones in our absence.

If you’re weighing your options for where to place your close relative, it’s important that you carefully consider what is being said. The following are some red flags that you should look for when looking at nursing home reviews.

Indicators That an Assisted Living Facility May Not Be Ideal for Your Family Member

You’ll seldom find the same type of insight among different sites, but instead, different information. For example, while some sites have fill-in-the-blank reporting tools where users can report certain, specific issues, others may allow individuals to address virtually any concerns they have.

No matter the nursing home review site you’re looking at, beware of any discussions about the following:

• Inefficient visitor screening: This may mean that anyone can walk into the facility unchecked and presumably into residents’ rooms
• Discussions of subpar hiring practices: Not performing background checks on staff members, having high turnover, etc., are some examples of concerns that should give you pause
• The facility being “in the news” for all the wrong reasons: If you read or hear that a resident wandered away from the facility, contracted a communicable disease due to the nursing home’s uncleanliness, etc., this may be a sign it’s not ideal for your family member

In addition to the above, look for keywords or buzzwords in nursing home reviews that are typical warning signs of abuse, such as:

• Abuse
• Financial exploitation
• Mistreated
• Taken advantage of
• Malnourished
• Dehydrated
• Unclean or unsanitary
• Bugs or rodents
• Neglected or abandoned
• Restrained
• Medication withheld
• Doesn’t allow visitors or limited socialization

In other words, be on the lookout for any terminology that may seem like it centers around restricting your loved one’s activities out of principle to protect them or may cause a decline in their health instead of enhancing their safety, quality of life, and wellbeing.

Concerns Often Associated With Online Reviews About Long-Term Care Facilities

As we mentioned above, not all reviews of nursing homes are created equally. The reason we say this is that we find that it’s best to cross-reference reviews to gain a bigger picture about a facility instead of relying on what a single review or source says.

Why do we say this? Depending on the review site you use, you may find the information contained in them sourced differently.

For example, online Google Business Profile or Yelp reviews are generally posted by everyday consumers. While these sites may use detection tools to ensure someone using the same email or IP address is repeatedly making posts, there may be very little other vetting to ensure the authenticity of what one says.

While a person who truly had a bad experience as a nursing home resident or their close loved one may have actually posted the review, a disgruntled former employee might have forwarded untruths aimed at tarnishing the otherwise stellar reviews the facility had.

As another example, Medicare has a Nursing Home Care Compare tool that allows you to search for assisted living facilities receiving government funding in your area. In using this tool, you’ll notice that many of the facilities listed have very low overall ratings.

In looking closely at whether they’re consumer-reported reviews, you’ll see that it appears that Medicare assigns these rankings. They base them on health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. There’s an additional red icon next to the facility name if the facility has been cited for nursing home abuse. You can click on the facility’s profile for a few additional details, but none of them appear to be listed by consumers.

As you can see, this is where cross-referencing one review with another can “fill in the blanks” where another one may be lacking.

Carefully Weigh Reviews of Nursing Homes From Multiple Sources

Making the decision it’s time to place a loved one in a nursing home is challenging. However, deciding between different facilities can be just as hard. Hopefully, the above red flags to look for when looking at nursing home reviews will help you train your eye to select a facility that will take good care of your loved one.

Be sure to report any concerns to the appropriate authorities or to get assistance from an attorney if you feel you made a poor choice of facility and need help in holding any liable party responsible for their mistreatment of your family member so they don’t hurt anyone else.