UNDERSTANDING AND USING THE INDIVIDUAL LISTINGS

The individual listings shown in the next section of this guide provide you with helpful, though by no means comprehensive, information about individual nursing homes in Michigan. You will find out about the services they provide, payments they accept and how they perform in terms of customer satisfaction and compliance with state and federal regulations. Wherever possible, we have included historical information to help you assess the ability of a home to maintain quality care. This is the case for satisfaction and regulatory measures.

Each individual listing is contained in a grid with seven boxes. Following is an explanation of what material can be found in each box and what it means.

• FACILITY Box - In the facility box you will find basic information that helps you to locate the home including its name, address and phone number. You will also see the number of nursing home beds.
• FACILITY TYPE Box - In this box you will find what kind or "type" of facility the home is, i.e. skilled nursing, basic nursing, non-profit, home for the aged, etc. This information was self-reported by the homes.
• SERVICES Box - This box describes the services the home provides (i.e. skilled nursing care, personal care services, hospice or special Alzheimer's programming). This information was self-reported by the homes, and the accuracy of information in this box was not verified prior to publication. If this box is empty, it does not mean the home is bad or doesn't provide many services. It likely means the home did not return the form they were sent asking them to describe their services or that this section was left blank on the form.
• PAYMENTS ACCEPTED Box - This box contains self-reported information from the homes and accuracy was not verified. This box shows the types of payment the home said it accepts. Again, if this box is empty for a home, it only means they didn't return the form. The payment types and insurances homes accept change from time to time. If you like a home but don't see your insurance or method of payment listed, it is important to call and ask. The home may be able to serve your needs even if you don't see your form of insurance listed.
• REGULATORY INFORMATION Box - The information in this box was NOT self-reported. Every licensed nursing home that is certified to provide Medicaid and Medicare funded services is subject to an unannounced inspection by the state. Inspections occur every 9 to 15 months. During the survey, 3 to 5 state surveyors spend a few days to a week inspecting the Medicaid and/or Medicare portion of the facility and checking the home's performance for federal regulatory deficiencies. Reports from these surveys can be very long and detailed. This box provides the following information from the home's most recent annual survey, conducted on or prior to November 1, 2002.
  
  
  • the date of the last annual survey
  • how many deficiency citations (F Tags) the home received
  • a letter grade indicating how serious the violation was (with A being the least serious and L being the most serious).
  
  Also, new for the 2003 edition, is survey information from the last two editions of the Consumer Guide. The total number of citations received is listed. For details on these citations, ask the facility to see the survey results, or obtain a previous copy of the Consumer Guide. Citations listed for 2000 were taken from the most recent annual survey available to us prior to November 1 of 2000. Surveys listed for 1998 were from the most recent annual survey available prior to November 1, 1998. Please note, in some cases, these surveys were actually conducted in either 1999 or 1997 respectively.
  
  It is important to remember that survey reports are a snapshot in time of a facility and may or may not reflect the true quality of care. Regulatory surveys, other than the annual surveys (i.e. complaint, revisits) may also exist. Homes are required by law to have a copy of all survey reports, administrative orders, etc. for the past 5 and 3 years respectively available for you to review upon request. More serious F tags that fall at the level of "sub-standard quality of care, (letters "F,H,I,J,K,L" for Tags with a numerical designation of 211-258 or 309-333,)" "actual harm, (letters "G,H,I") or "immediate jeopardy (letter "J,K,L") are in "bold" print. More detailed information about these F tags is available on the "More Serious Citations are in Bold Type" line. Some facilities are "licensed only," which means they are licensed by the State of Michigan, but are not certified to accept Medicare and Medicaid. Therefore, they do not receive the same type of survey as federally certified homes do. The guide has no survey data for these facilities. Licensing, survey and related information is available from the Department of Consumer and Industry Services. (See Appendix C for contact information.)
• FAMILY WILLINGNESS TO RECOMMEND Box - The information in this box was NOT self-reported by homes. The score in this box was determined by an independent research firm that collected and analyzed surveys from families who have a loved one in the facility. The percentage listed represents those respondents who indicated they would recommend the facility to others. The calculation does not include those who were unsure or chose not to answer the question. This information was part of the Family Satisfaction Study (see below). Some facilities did not participate in the family satisfaction study. This field will list an "N/A" if they chose not to participate.
• FAMILY SATISFACTION Box - The information in this box was NOT self-reported by homes. The satisfaction score for each facility was determined by an independent research firm that collected and analyzed surveys from families who have a loved one in the facility. More information about the survey, the survey instrument and the process used is available in appendix A of this guide. There was a cost to participate in the voluntary statewide family satisfaction survey for this guide. Some 315 of the state's 440 nursing homes chose to participate. A facility's lack of participation in this study should not be interpreted to mean anything regarding the level of care provided. It simply means the home declined to have their families surveyed. Facilities that did not participate will have a "N/A" in this section of their listing.
  
  New for 2003, the results of previous family satisfaction studies are also listed. The figures listed are taken from previous editions of the Consumer Guide. We have also included the percentage of family members that responded to the survey.
  
  Some facilities may have conducted a study in the year between editions of the Consumer Guide. Ask the facility to see their results for these years.
• "MORE SERIOUS CITATIONS ARE IN BOLD TYPE..." Line - This line lists all "F-Tags" for citations that fall in the categories of "Level 3 (actual harm)", "Level 4 (immediate jeopardy)" or "sub-standard quality of care (SQOC)." These citations, which are more serious in nature, are also in bold print in the "Regulatory Citations" box. For a definition of these terms, see the Glossary in Appendix D. A list of the F-Tags can be found in Appendix B - About the Regulatory Citations.
• FACILITY COMMENTS Line - In this section facilities were allowed to make an optional 75- word statement about any parts of their listing that they wanted to clarify or explain. This box was intended to give each home a chance to make a direct statement to consumers regarding either their listing in the guide or their facility. No efforts were made to verify the accuracy of these statements.
• Appendices - Several appendices have been added to give you additional information about the guide and how we compiled the information contained in the listings. Appendices include:
  
  
  • About the Family Satisfaction Scores
  • About the Regulatory Citations
  • Other Resources
  • Glossary