GAO-20-259T:
Published: Nov 14, 2019.
To protect vulnerable nursing home residents from abuse, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts with state agencies—known as survey agencies—that can cite nursing homes for incidents of abuse.
Our June 2019 report found that, while abuse in nursing homes is often underreported, abuse citations more than doubled from 2013-2017. We also found gaps in CMS’s oversight that made it harder to protect residents and we made six recommendations to address this.
This statement for the record updates the status of these recommendations and others from prior GAO reports that examined the health and welfare of the elderly.