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This past Thursday hearings were held at Capitol Hill regarding ownership transparency and nursing homes.

At two Capitol Hill hearings yesterday, legislators highlighted the need for greater transparency in nursing-home operations and called for a government probe into the quality of care given at facilities owned by private-equity firms.

Experts presented studies that showed more incidents at private-equity-owned chains and lower staffing ratios compared to nonprofit and publicly owned facilities.

The hearings come as the Carlyle Group winds up its $6.3 billion takeover this month of Manor Care, the nation’s largest nursing home chain. The takeover has been challenged by some long-term-care advocates and a labor union trying to organize the Toledo company’s 60,000 employees.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, called for the Government Accountability Office to look into the ownership structures of nursing homes and how they affect transparency, staffing levels and quality of care.

“I am concerned about quality issues and lack of accountability, particularly as more and more beneficiaries are now living in private-equity-owned homes. While we must not prejudge anything, these changes provide ample reason for us to reinitiate closer oversight of this industry to make sure that interests of beneficiaries are protected,” Stark said at the hearing.

Aren’t we all concerned?

The other hearing:

Kerry N. Weems, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes, offered several initiatives to improve oversight. His suggestions included releasing the so-called special focus facility list, which identifies homes that regulators consider among the nation’s worst. That list, which will be released Dec. 1, has not been public.

Mr. Weems also announced that his agency was developing a system to identify any person or company that owned more than 5 percent of a nursing home. But similar systems in some state have been easily sidestepped by investment companies hoping to obscure ownership through complicated corporate structures.
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Lawmakers also discussed requiring nursing homes to have insurance or bonds to pay fines or court verdicts. Some owners have escaped such payments by leaving homes undercapitalized or by removing profit through complex transactions.

In defending the industry, a nursing home executive said that some information should remain confidential and that companies were committed to providing quality care.

“Nursing home providers are transparent in the disclosure of quality data, but there are those who take the information and use it against us,” said Steve Biondi, speaking on behalf of the American Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group. “We concur with all here today that there is far more to accomplish. But we must do so together.”

Mr. Biondi said the company he works for, Extendicare, has about five sites on the “special focus facility” list.

The hearings also provided a forum for competing studies that evaluate nursing homes owned by private investment groups.

It’s sad that they even call this the “nursing home industry” when one thinks about it. It should not be an industrious business; it should be humane.