WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Trump administration required nursing homes to report their COVID-19 cases, it also promised to make the data available to residents, families and the public in a user-friendly way.
But some facilities that have had coronavirus cases and deaths turn up as having none on Medicare's COVID-19 nursing home website. Those data may be incomplete because the reporting requirements don't reach back to the start of the pandemic. Numbers don't necessarily portray the full picture.
“The biggest thing that needs to be taken away ... is in its current form, it is really leaving consumers in the dark,” Sam Brooks, project manager for Consumer Voice, said of the website, maintained by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Consumer Voice is a national advocacy group for improved quality in long-term care.
Nursing homes are only required to provide CMS with data on coronavirus cases and deaths among residents and staff as of May 8, or more than two months after the first outbreak in a U.S. facility was reported. Nursing homes have the option of full disclosure, but not all have taken it, and there is no penalty for withholding older data that may reflect poorly.
The missing information from early in the pandemic leads to some puzzling results on the website.
For example, a nursing home that had one of the first major reported outbreaks in the country — Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington — shows no confirmed COVID-19 cases and no deaths on the CMS data page.
A spokesman for Life Care Centers of America, a major chain, said the company is providing the information the government requested.
“We are reporting what CMS is asking us to report to them,” said Tim Killian. “We are not evading them in any way.
“The Kirkland facility is now COVID-free and it has been for some time,” Killian added. The data showing no cases “is a snapshot of what is currently in the facility.”
The company said its cumulative count shows 100 residents tested positive, and 34 died. “You can ask us directly and we’ll give you the exact numbers,” said Killian.
But consumer advocate Brooks said that information should be on the government website.
As it stands, the site “doesn’t tell the whole picture,” he said. “You are not going to be able to look at a home and make an informed decision."
CMS, which sets standards for nursing homes, said protecting residents is a top priority, and “transparency and information sharing has proven to be one of the keys to the battle against this pandemic.”
But the agency said it lacked the legal authority to require nursing homes to disclose COVID-19 information from before the effective date of its reporting rule in May.