By: Makenzie Huber
WASHINGTON (South Dakota Searchlight) – Six of South Dakota’s 96 nursing homes are on the newest monthly federal list of the nation’s worst-rated care facilities.
Five of the facilities are eligible for a special program to improve quality of care through increased regulatory oversight, and one is already in the program.
The eligible South Dakota facilities as of the April report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are Avantara Norton in Sioux Falls, Riverview Healthcare Center in Flandreau, Good Samaritan Society Sioux Falls Village, Lake Andes Senior Living and Wilmot Care Center.
One facility, Dells Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Dell Rapids, has been in the Special Focus Facility program for nearly two years. Good Samaritan Society Sioux Falls Center — separate from the society’s similarly named Sioux Falls Village — graduated in July 2023, after spending 27 months in the program.
Nursing homes are identified by the state as special-focus facilities based on their last three standard health survey inspections. Special-focus facilities must meet more stringent criteria two times in a row to be eligible for graduation. Dells Nursing and Rehabilitation Center did not pass its most recent inspection in January, so it will restart the process toward graduation.
Because the number of special-focus facilities is capped, eligible facilities — even those that have earned CMS’ lowest ratings for quality — can’t be named a special-focus facility until other homes in the same state already in the program are terminated from Medicare and Medicaid or improve and “graduate” from the program.
That’s a process that can take several years. As a result, there are homes in each state that are eligible for special-focus status due to ongoing quality-of-care problems, but can’t enroll in the program. It’s also why two of the five eligible South Dakota facilities have waited more than three years as candidates: Avantara Norton and Riverview Healthcare Center.
Typically, the homes that are deemed eligible for special-focus designation have about twice the average number of violations cited by inspectors; they have more serious problems than most other nursing homes, including harm or injury to residents; and they have an established pattern of serious problems that has persisted over a long period of time.
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