Nursing-home referral service, A Place for Mom, is funded by nursing homes and has no information about their violations

Image from home page of A Place for Mom website

Kentucky Health News

The nation's largest nursing-home referral service, A Place for Mom, does not inform users about citations of facilities for neglect or other substandard care, The Washington Post reports.

A Place for Mom charges no fees to people seeking senior housing, but "is paid large fees by assisted-living facilities and does not independently assess their records," the Post reports. "More than a third of its most highly recommended facilities in 28 states were cited for neglect or substandard care in the past two years, many of them repeatedly."

Those 28 states put nursing-home inspection reports online, enabling the Post to easily research them. Kentucky is among the 22 states that do not put inspection reports online. Medicare's Nursing Home Compare website, which ranks facilities on a five-star systen, is based on those reports.

"A Place for Mom does not include these reports in its profiles of facilities, even in cases where poor care has led to death," the Post reports. 

Some places cite for substandard care have received a “Best of Senior Living” award from A Place for Mom for providing “exemplary care and support to aging loved ones.” The company says the awards are based on user reviews, "which are often anonymous," the Post reports.

"Current and former staff of some large chains told The Post that these reviews are often manipulated by the care providers; some claimed they were encouraged to obtain fake reviews from their own friends and relatives. . . . None of the sources suggested that A Place for Mom itself is involved in generating fake or manipulated reviews. But they say the site’s prominence creates incentives for facilities to push for favorable ratings."