Arizona is one of a few states in the U.S. that uses its own ranking system for its nursing homes along with the federal ranking system provided by Medicare. While both systems use the same data, Arizona’s ranking system has proven far more lenient than the federal tool, and some of the highest rated homes in the state have shown questionable safety records with wrongful death lawsuits on their records. The department is still unable to properly define how its rating system, which uses the same data presented in the Medicare tool, gives considerably higher grades to its homes. The headline of our story sums up our key finding: 123 have unexpected died in nursing homes, but Arizona still gives them top grades.
The story was the result of a six-month investigation in an investigative reporting class taught by Boston Globe editor Walter V. Robinson. One of our reporters (Ethan Millman) looked through Arizona’s nursing home rating system following the national news of a woman being raped while in a vegetative state at Hacienda Healthcare. He noticed the rating discrepancy when looking side by side at the state and federal rating websites. When we more closely analyzed the ratings and confirmed that Arizona consistently gave better scores, we dug through court records to find lawsuits reflecting instances of neglect, abuse and wrongful deaths at homes with high state, low federal ratings. These suits provided more sources and information to our story. The article was based entirely on original reporting with few if any stories on Arizona’s rating system being published in the past.