DES MOINES, Iowa — A new report by Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand claims the state of Iowa is failing to meet a federal mandate on nursing home inspections.
Federal regulations require certified nursing homes to be inspected on average every 12.9 months. In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires states to inspect individual nursing homes once every 15.9 months to ensure the home is in compliance with requirements for participation in Medicare and Medicaid, according to the auditor's office.
In comparison, the auditor's office reports Iowa conducts inspections on average every 17.1 months, higher than both of these federal benchmarks.
Additionally, the report finds more than 85% of Iowa's 403 certified nursing homes did not meet the 15.9 month expectation on at least one occasion over the past three inspections.
"This is just an issue that has been the subject of lots of questions, been the subject of lots of coverage and we thought that this information would be hopefully useful to policymakers as they decide whether or not they want to do something about the crisis in Iowa's nursing homes," Sand said during a press conference Monday.
Iowa ranks 46th nationally in the number of licensed nurses per resident, according to Sand's report. In addition, he claims Iowa has the 17th highest turnover rate in nursing staff.
Sand believes these staffing issues are a result of the legislature and governor's lack of focus on addressing what he calls a "workforce crisis," as the auditor also cited low wages as a reason for the staffing shortage.
"Folks are doing really what you could say is the Lord's work, right?" he said. "They are dressing people, they are helping people bathe, but often times, because of low reimbursement rates, they could actually make just as much flipping burgers at McDonald's."
Iowa State Sen. Claire Celsi, D-West Des Moines, issued a statement on Sand's report, slamming Gov. Kim Reynolds and her administration for "failing to protect seniors in Iowa nursing homes."
“Iowa lags behind our neighbors and the country as a whole on key indicators of nursing home resident care and safety," Celsi wrote in part. "In a state where reports of abuse, neglect, and unnecessary death are a regular occurrence, the consequences of these failures couldn’t be more obvious.”
