A very convenient tool for concerned families to evaluate nursing homes is the “Medicare Compare” website.  Included within this is a section that designates what are known as “Special Focus Facilities.”  A Special Focus Facility represents the bottom 1% or 2% of all nursing homes in the country which have demonstrated not only under-performance, but whose corporate practices have demonstrated a significant danger to members of our community who entrust them to care for their loved ones. http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/CertificationandComplianc/Downloads/SFFList.pdf

In order to become a Special Focus Facility, a nursing home must demonstrate a significant period of time of a failure to comply with all the safety rules and regulations promulgated by the Federal government to protect their elderly residents and a failure to address concerns expressed by State and Federal surveyors. Currently, New Jersey has two special Focus facilities.  These are Water’s Edge Rehabilitation in Trenton, New Jersey and Liberty Royal Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.

Consumers should carefully think twice before entrusting a loved one with a facility with this dangerous designation, although many of the better nursing homes in New Jersey have been Special Focus Facilities and have ostensibly cleaned up their act. That is, the Special Focus Facility program is one which works.  Many well meaning organizations take this designation quite seriously and improve their conduct.  However, some facilities have been forced to close their doors because of this designation.  As bad as that seems to many of the residents, it is unquestionable that the Special Focus Facility designation and the hard work of surveyors protects residents whose lives are placed at risk because of dangerous corporate conduct.