How to Research Nursing Homes with Online Local Search

There are a number of websites that provide useful information about nursing homes.  One such site is the Medicare.gov website providing quality ratings and inspection results for all Medicare and Medicaid approved nursing homes.  However, it's also a wise idea to look for online comments and reviews from people who have used the nursing homes.

One way to do that is to use Google's local search features.  Just type a search for "nursing home" and the area of interest and Google will provide a list of nursing homes along with a map showing the location of each one, at the top of the search results page.  This list below resulted from my search for "nursing home houston tx."

Note that each listing provides a link to the nursing homes' websites, if they have one, plus a link to reviews if any have been posted online.   If I click the "2 reviews" link for one of the facilities, I'll see the following reviews.

The first review is from a website called OurParents.com.  I've seen a number of these "Our Parents" reviews and they always seem to be summaries of recent Medicare/Medicaid inspections, written in a standard format.  Certainly, these summaries provide useful information, but they are not consumer reviews.  The second review looks like it was written by someone with actual experience at this nursing home, and the review was posted to a website that contributes reviews to Google, called Citysearch.com.  If I click on the title link "Looks nice on the outside-neglectful," I'm taken to more reviews for this nursing home at Citysearch.com.  Here is one of the other reviews I found at Citysearch.com, written in late March of 2010.

You should read each consumer review and make a credibility assessment.  Does it seem to be written by someone I can relate to?  Do I find the facts stated in the review to be believable?  If a positive review, could it be a fake posted by the facility management, or if a negative review, could it have been posted by competitors.

If you find this review to be credible, it might make you cautious about placing a loved one at this facility.  At the least, the reviews might provide material for questions you might ask of the nursing home administrator before someone you care about is placed there.

Do good nursing homes get negative reviews?  You can't please everyone all the time, so I'm sure that most do receive poor reviews at some time or another; however, a list of consistently poor reviews could be a warning sign of potential trouble at a nursing home.  The wise nursing home researcher will use the information from these consumer reviews and from state and federal inspections, plus your impressions from actual visits, when deciding where to place a friend or relative.