59A-4.165. Nursing Home Guide

(1) Pursuant to Section 400.191 F.S., the Agency shall publish the Nursing Home Guide quarterly in electronic form to assist consumers and their families in comparing and evaluating nursing home facilities. The Nursing Home Guide or “Guide,” is available on the web at http://www.floridahealthfinder.gov/LandingPages/NursingHomeGuide.aspx.

(2) The electronic Guide shall include the following:

(a) The ability to search for a nursing home;

(b) General guidance about when a nursing home is the appropriate choice of care;

(c) General guidance about selecting a nursing home;

(d) Contact information such as phone numbers and web sites where questions can be answered, and further information can be obtained.

(e) A listing of all nursing home facilities in the State of Florida, including hospital based skilled nursing units. This listing shall include for each nursing home the following:

1. Name;

2. Address;

3. Telephone numbers;

4. Web address of facility;

5. A recognition if the nursing home licensee has been awarded a Gold Seal;

6. The current licensee;

7. Which calendar year the current licensee became the licensee;

8. Whether the licensee is a for-profit, or non-profit entity, and whether or not the nursing home is part of a retirement community;

9. Any corporate or religious affiliations;

10. The number of private, semi-private, and total beds at the nursing home;

11. The lowest daily charge for a semi-private room;

12. The payment forms accepted;

13. Any special services or amenities, or recreational programs provided;

14. Any non-English languages spoken by the administrator or staff of the nursing home.

(f) Details of each deficiency the nursing home has been cited for over the time period specified in Section 400.191, F.S.

(3) The format of the published Guide is shown in the Nursing Home Guide Methodology, which is located on the web at http://www.floridahealthfinder.gov/Comparecare/MethodologyNH.aspx.

(4) The Guide will employ a procedure for summarizing the deficiencies as follows:

(a) All deficiencies cited over the most recently available time period as specified in Section 400.191, F.S., prior to the publication of the Guide will be collected.

(b) Each citation will be assigned points based on the type of deficiency and its assigned severity and scope. For those nursing homes that are not federally certified, each citation will be assigned points based on the type of deficiency and its assigned class. Nursing homes that are federally certified have their deficiencies cited using federal F-Tags and K-Tags. Nursing homes that are not federally certified have their deficiencies cited using state N-Tags and K-Tags. For the non-federally certified nursing homes, each cited state N-Tag or K-Tag shall be reviewed by the Agency to determine which federal F-Tag or K-Tag the state tag is equivalent to. The points assigned to a state tag N-Tag or K-Tag shall be those that would be assigned to the equivalent federal F-Tag or K-Tag, if the nursing home were federally certified.

(c) A score for a nursing home will be computed by summing the points of all of its citations, and then dividing this sum by the number of recertification surveys conducted during the period as in paragraph (a) above. For those facilities that are not federally certified, the number of surveys will be used in place of the number of recertification surveys. For current non-federally certified nursing homes that become federally-certified nursing homes, a combination of the non-federally certified citation score and the federally-certified citation score will be utilized.

(d) For federally certified nursing homes, the above computations will reflect any changes resulting from the Informal Dispute Resolution process, or administrative or appellate proceedings; inasmuch as the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concurs with such changes.

(e) The scores for the freestanding nursing homes will be ranked within each region. The regions are defined in the Nursing Home Guide Methodology.

(f) These ranks shall be presented numerically or symbolically in the Guide.

(g) Paragraphs (b) through (f) shall be repeated for Components of Inspection which are subsets of the citations. Components of inspection are discussed in the Nursing Home Guide Methodology. The subsetting of the tags for non-certified nursing homes shall be accomplished by using the equivalent federal F-Tags and K-tags.

Rulemaking Authority 400.191 FS. Law Implemented 400.191 FS. History–New 2-15-01, Amended 12-21-15.