If you’ve been looking for assisted living facilities in Gilbert, Arizona, for a while now, you have probably noticed the system that is used to rate and give more information about each facility. It seems reliable and informative enough, but do you know what those stars actually mean? How are they determined? Who decides how many stars an assisted living facility earns? When working with senior placement organizations in Gilbert, Arizona, like Integrity Senior Placement, you’ll probably notice the rating system a lot. Keep reading to gain a better understanding of this and the kinds of facilities that would be a good fit for you or your loved one.

The rating system for assisted living and other care facilities was developed by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare. This was done to help consumers, families, and caregivers compare nursing homes easily and better understand the quality of each one. Each facility is given a rating of one to five stars. Facilities with five stars are above average quality while one star facilities are below average.

One general rating is given for the facility as a whole and then there are individual ratings for three aspects of the facility: health inspections, staffing, and quality measures.

To determine the health inspection rating, data is reviewed from the last three years of on-site inspections. This data is obtained by people who visit each facility and follow specific guidelines to determine if the facility meets the quality requirements. These requirements are determined by the Center of Medicare if the facility is Medicare-approved.

The rating for staffing takes into account the staff to resident ratio. It also includes the level of care that is needed by the residents of the facility. Hospices and nursing homes, which have high care needs, are expected to have more skilled nursing staff than places with less intense needs, like assisted living facilities. It also includes how many hours of care each resident receives each day.

The last part of the score is quality measures. Each facility is rated on several physical and clinical aspects. It measures aspects such as how quickly an agency can begin care, how residents and patients improve in this facility, how many trips to emergency rooms and hospitals occur, and changes in residents’ mobility. This rating shows how well a facility cares for its residents’ needs in a physical sense.

It is helpful to know that the federal government does not audit or license assisted living facilities. This is done by individual state government agencies, who are also responsible for oversight of such facilities.

While this information is crucial and helpful when it comes to finding an assisted living facility in Gilbert, AZ, it is not the only information to look at. Some other factors that may affect satisfaction and quality of assisted living facilities include quality of life, legal actions taken against the facility (if any), citations, if it is for profit or not for profit, the facility’s licensure, and types of services the facility can offer.

Understanding the rating system and the factors that are measured can make your assisted living facility search much easier. This search can also be made easier by working with Gilbert, Arizona based senior placement companies like Integrity Senior Placement. This way, finding an assisted living facility that suits your needs can be a much easier process.