2020 Catholic Nursing Homes Report

Abstract

We were able to identify 139 Catholic-affiliated nonprofit nursing homes in the United States, with at least one facility in 33 of the 50 states. These facilities offer 13,200 nursing home beds which house an average of approximately 11,346 residents at any given time for an average occupancy rate of 86%. We found an additional 306 Christian-affiliated nonprofit nursing homes which were either non-denominational or affiliated with a denomination other than Catholic. However, we did not include these non-Catholic facilities in our analysis. If you are interested in finding more information about other Christian nursing homes, they are listed separately in our 2020 Catholic Senior Living Resource Directory. Please note that religious-affiliated nursing homes generally do not require you to be a practicing member of their religion or denomination in order to reside there. Finally, we did not include any for-profit Catholic-affiliated facilities in this analysis.

While many of the Catholic nursing homes included in this analysis also provide assisted living or independent living facilities on site, this analysis focuses exclusively on each community’s skilled nursing facility. The data associated with skilled nursing facilities is compiled annually through a combination of government inspections and mandatory self-reporting. Other types of facilities, including both assisted living and independent living, are not subjected to this compulsory reporting scheme and thus any data on those types of facilities is less reliable. Consequently, we concluded that including these facilities in our analysis would skew the data.

Our grades are based exclusively on data collected from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Our overall grades are a weighted average of our inspections, short-term care, long-term care and nursing category grades. Each category grade is based on a weighted average of a series of metrics used to assess those specific categories. Weighting is determined by a combination of the relative importance of each metric or category and the degree of correlation between each respective category or metric and the overall quality baselines we used to assess the facilities. In other words, we applied more weight to metrics and categories which we found to be either more important, more predictive, or both. Aside from the selection of metrics and categories and the weighting of the same, we did not include any subjective component to this grading system. Furthermore, we do not receive any monetary consideration from any nursing home referenced in this report for any reason, including but not limited to, featuring the facility in the report. Please note that while our grades are based on CMS data, our algorithms are proprietary in nature and our grades are not intended to reflect or mirror any grading system used by CMS or any other government agency.

Both Catholic and other Christian nursing homes substantially outperformed other types of nursing homes in terms of both overall grades and all four of the category grades we assessed. Furthermore, Catholic nursing homes performed better than the baseline performance of other Christian nursing homes, as well as nursing homes in general. In fact, the average Catholic nursing home received an A- overall grade, which we consider to be in the top one-third of nursing homes in the United States. Ninety of the 139 Catholic nursing homes received a grade of A- or better, which means that Catholic nursing homes are approximately two times as likely to receive an elite grade (defined as a grade of A- or better) as other non-Catholic nursing homes.

Please note that all grades, rankings and other data in this report are as of October 2020. This data is all subject to change for any subsequent period as inspection data is updated regularly.

National Overview

The breakout for overall grades for Catholic nursing homes was as follows: (i) 90 received grades of A- or better; (ii) 32 received grades of B+, B or B-; and (iii) 17 received grades of C or worse. This results in approximately 64.7% of all Catholic nursing homes receiving elite grades (which we defined as a grade of A- or better). Out of these 90 facilities, 45 of them received an A+ overall grade which is the highest grade a nursing home can receive. The average report card for a Catholic nursing home, including category grades, is shown below in Table 1 (Comparison of Catholic Nursing Home Grades to Other Facilities). In terms of our raw scores in each of these areas, the Catholic nursing homes were slightly better on average than other Christian nursing homes (although this only translated into a higher letter grade in long-term care) and were substantially better in every category than most non-Christian affiliated facilities.

More impressively, nine Catholic nursing homes received A+’s in all four of our category grades as well as an A+ overall. It is worth noting that three of these nine facilities are hospital-based facilities.

Nursing Homes that Received an A+ Grade in All Categories

• Auburn Home in Waconia, Waconia, Minnesota
• St. Francis Medical Center SNF, Monroe, Louisiana
• Clement Manor Health Care Center, Greenfield, Wisconsin
• Villa Maria West Skilled Nursing Facility, Hialeah Gardens, Florida
• St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Bloomington, Illinois
• Bon Secours Depaul, TCC, Norfolk, Virginia
• Benedictine Health Center Innsbruck, New Brighton, Minnesota
• Genesys Short-Term Rehabilitation Center, Grand Blanc, Michigan
• Mercy Circle, Chicago, Illinois

Table 1 – Comparison of Catholic Nursing Home EG Grades to Other Facilities

Within each of these four categories we assessed, we found that Catholic nursing homes performed substantially better than the national average. Two key areas we focused on are inspections and staffing.

Inspection Reports

Inspection grades are based primarily on the deficiencies found on the facility’s inspection reports, government fines and complaints reported by residents and their families. There are nine categories of deficiencies assessed by government inspectors against nursing homes, which are labeled A through L. Category A through F deficiencies are relatively minor deficiencies which do not threaten patient safety. Category G through I deficiencies potentially pose a risk to patient safety but the threat is not deemed to place patient health in immediate jeopardy. Category J through L deficiencies are the most severe deficiencies, which place resident health or safety in immediate jeopardy. Category L deficiencies are the most severe as these are severe deficiencies found to be widespread at the facility. We weight these more severe deficiencies far more heavily than minor deficiencies in calculating our inspection scores.

Table 2 – Catholic Nursing Homes Inspection Deficiency Data (based on number of deficiencies in past three years)

The average nursing home in the United States has received roughly eight total deficiencies over the last three years. We found that 128 of the 139 Catholic nursing homes received eight or fewer deficiencies over the last three years, while 83 of them had three or fewer deficiencies during that time period (less than one per year). Nearly all of the deficiencies assessed against Catholic nursing homes were minor deficiencies, with just eight of the 139 Catholic nursing homes receiving a severe deficiency over the last three years. Most importantly, not a single Catholic nursing home has received a Category L deficiency in the last three years.

Not surprisingly, three of the four deficiency-free nursing homes also received A+ overall grades. Two of those A+ facilities received straight A+'s in all four categories, while the third received A+'s in three of the four categories. It is evident that being deficiency-free is generally a strong indication of overall quality.

Deficiency-Free Nursing Homes with A+ Overall Grades

• St. Margaret Hall, Cincinatti, Ohio
• Genesys Short-Term Rehabilitation Center, Grand Blanc, Michigan
• Sansbury Care Center, Saint Catharine, Kentucky

Another aspect of our inspection grades is complaints and government fines. Roughly two-thirds of the Catholic nursing homes did not receive a single complaint in the last three years, with just 12 of the facilities receiving five or more complaints during that time period. Fines are relatively highly correlated with deficiencies, as government inspectors tend to impose fines for severe deficiencies which go uncorrected over a period of multiple inspections. Only 27 Catholic nursing homes have been fined in the last three years, with just nine being fined more than once. Only two of those 27 facilities received fines totaling more than $100,000 over that three-year period.

Staffing Data

Staffing data relates to the levels of staffing offered by each facility. We focused primarily on the staffing levels of nurses and physical therapists. We broke nurses down into three categories: registered nurses, licensed nurses and nurse’s aides. Staffing data is factored into each of our nursing, short-term care and long-term care category grades. Registered nurse or licensed nurse staffing is most critical in a post-acute care or short-term rehabilitation setting where the patient requires wound care or other medical care in addition to rehabilitation. In a long-term care setting where patients primarily require routine personal care such as assistance with activities of daily living (i.e. bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, mobility, etc.), the sheer volume of nursing care is more important than the skill level of the nurses.

Table 3 – Staffing Data of Catholic Nursing Homes by Position (based on hours per resident per day)

Nationally, the average nursing home provides approximately three hours and fifty-two minutes (3.87 hours) of total nurse staffing per resident per day, with approximately 41 minutes (0.68 hours) of that care coming from registered nurses and 52 minutes (0.87 hours) from licensed nurses. On average, Catholic nursing homes provided substantially higher staffing levels, particularly with regard to nurse’s aides and registered nurses. In fact, we found that 95 of the 131 Catholic nursing homes that reported nurse staffing data (eight facilities did not report staffing data during this period) to CMS reported above average nurse staffing levels. More impressively, we found that 21 of these nursing homes provided more than 150% of the average nurse staffing levels.

The ten most well-staffed Catholic nursing homes (in terms of total nursing hours) all provided more than 6.8 hours per day of nurse staffing per resident, which is more than 175% of the national average. These ten facilities are displayed below with their overall grade and total nursing hours in parentheses, which we believe illustrates the strong correlation between nurse staffing and overall quality of care.

Most Highly Staffed Catholic Nursing Homes (by Total Nurse Hours per Resident per Day)

1. St. Joseph’s Medical Center (11.23 hours, A+), Bloomington, Illinois
2. Genesys Short-Term Rehabilitation Center (9.46 hours, A+), Grand Blanc, Michigan
3. Providence Little Comp of Mary Subacute Care Center (8.66 hours, B-), San Pedro, California
4. Providence Holy Cross Medical Center D/P SNF (8.16 hours, A), Mission Hills, California
5. Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home (7.81 hours, A), Joliet, Illinois
6. Providence Transitional Care Center (7.60 hours, A-), Anchorage, Alaska
7. Skilled Caring Center of Memorial Hospital (7.15 hours, A+), Jasper, Indiana
8. Providence Little Co of Mary Transitional Care Center (6.91 hours, A+), Torrance, California
9. Maria Health Care Center (6.90 hours, A-), Baltimore, Maryland
10. Presence Saint Joseph Hospital-Chicago (6.83 hours, A+), Chicago, Illinois

As you can see, only one of the ten facilities on this list received an overall grade below an A-. In fact, five of the ten facilities received an overall grade of A+. It is not surprising that five of the ten nursing homes on this list were hospital-based facilities. These facilities provide the most intensive rehabilitation to people requiring extensive medical care. The average hospital-based Catholic nursing home provided an average of 5.44 hours of nursing care and 0.18 hours of physical therapy per resident per day. These figures dwarfed the national averages shown above.

It is important to remember that just ten additional minutes per day of nursing care translates into more than an additional hour of care per week and more than 60 hours of additional care over the course of a year. This can easily be the difference between a healthy patient and one that experiences a pressure ulcer or an unsupervised fall.

National Rankings

We also looked at how these nursing homes ranked compared to other nursing homes around the country. Below in Table 4 (Catholic Nursing Homes by National Percentile Rank) is the percentile breakout, showing the number of Catholic nursing homes in each percentile range nationally.

Table 4 – Catholic Nursing Homes by National Percentile Rank

We were especially impressed to find that six Catholic nursing homes ranked in the 99th percentile (top 1%) nationally. Catholic nursing homes represent approximately 3.8% of all of the nursing homes in the 99th percentile, despite the fact that Catholic nursing homes represent less than 0.9% of all of the nursing homes in the United States. In fact there are significantly more Catholic nursing homes ranked in the top 10% nationally (41) than there are in the bottom 50% (28). Finally, nearly 80% of all Catholic nursing homes ranked in the top 50 percentiles nationally. The top 15 highest ranked Catholic nursing homes in the nation are listed below.

Top 15 Catholic Nursing Homes (Nationally)

1. Auburn Home in Waconia, Waconia, Minnesota
2. St. Francis Medical Center SNF, Monroe, Louisiana
3. Clement Manor Health Care Center, Greenfield, Wisconsin
4. Villa Maria West Skilled Nursing Facility, Hialeah Gardens, Florida
5. St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Bloomington, Illinois
6. Mary’s Meadow at Providence Place, Holyoke, Massachusetts
7. Bon Secours Depaul, TCC, Norfolk, Virginia
8. St. Margaret Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio
9. Benedictine Health Center Innsbruck, New Brighton, Minnesota
10. St. Camillus Health Center, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
11. Presence Saint Joseph Hospital- Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
12. Genesys Short-Term Rehabilitation Center, Grand Blanc, Michigan
13. Mercy Circle, Chicago, Illinois
14. Skilled Nursing Center of Memorial Hospital, Jasper, Indiana
15. Avera Brady Health and Rehab, Mitchell, South Dakota

Hospital-Based Catholic Nursing Homes

Four of the top 15 Catholic facilities nationally are hospital-based skilled nursing facilities, specializing in post-acute medical care and rehabilitation after a serious injury or major surgery. Nursing homes based in hospitals provide the highest level of medical care compared to other skilled nursing facilities. Nursing homes based in Catholic affiliated hospitals received remarkably high grades in our assessment, with the average hospital-based Catholic nursing home receiving an A for its overall grade. Of the 26 hospital-based Catholic nursing homes we identified, 22 facilities (representing 84.6%) received elite grades (which we defined as a grade of A- or better) in our assessment. These facilities were more than 2.5 times as likely to receive an elite grade as the average nursing home in the nation. Not a single one of these hospital-based Catholic facilities received an overall grade below B-, which is still a perfectly respectable grade.

Top 10 Catholic Hospital-Based Nursing Homes (Nationally)

1. St. Francis Medical Center SNF, Monroe, Louisiana
2. Bon Secours Depaul, TCC, Norfolk, Virginia
3. Genesys Short-Term Rehabilitation Center, Grand Blanc, Michigan
4. Skilled Nursing Center of Memorial Hospital, Jasper, Indiana
5. Presence Saints Mary & Elizabeth Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois
6. St. Aloisius Medical Center Nursing Home, Harvey, North Dakota
7. Holy Rosary Extended Care Unit, Miles City, Montana
8. Mercy Living Plus, Oelwein, Iowa
9. Granite Manor, Granite Falls, Minnesota
10. SSM Health Depaul Hospital – Anna House, Bridgeton, Missouri

Regional Overview

We analyzed the facilities by region, breaking out the nation into the Northeast, South, Midwest and West. The breakdown of regional groupings by state was as follows:

Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT, NJ, PA and NY)

South (DE, DC, MD, GA, FL, NC, SC, VA, WV, AL, KY, MS, TN, AR, LA, TX, and OK)

Midwest (IN, IL, MI, OH, WI, IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND and SD)

West (AZ, CO, NM, ID, MT, UT, NV, WY, CA, AL, HI, OR and WA)

The breakout of Catholic nursing homes by region is displayed below in Table 5 (Catholic Nursing Home Availability and Quality Assessments by Region). As you can see, a disproportionate number of the Catholic nursing homes are concentrated in the Midwest, while the West coast has by far the fewest Catholic nursing homes. The facilities in the Midwest performed better than other regions, with the most Catholic nursing homes, the most elite Catholic nursing homes and the best average overall grade. The Northeast and South also received the same average overall grade of A-, however, the average raw score for nursing homes in the Midwest was slightly higher.

Table 5 – Catholic Nursing Home Availability and Quality Assessments by Region

Remarkably, 29 of the 69 Catholic nursing homes in the Midwest received an overall grade of A+ in our assessment. By way of comparison, eight facilities received an A+ in the Northeast, six facilities received an A+ in the South and two received an A+ in the West. The highest rated Catholic nursing homes by region can be found below.

Top 5 Catholic Nursing Homes in the Northeast Region

1. Mary’s Meadow at Providence Place, Holyoke, Massachusetts
2. Saint Francis Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Laconia, New Hampshire
3. St. Joseph Residence, Manchester, New Hampshire
4. St. Joseph’s Place, Port Jervis, New York
5. St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center, Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Top 5 Catholic Nursing Homes in the South Region

1. St. Francis Medical Center, SNF, Monroe, Louisiana
2. Villa Maria West Skilled Nursing Facility, Hialeah Gardens, Florida
3. Bon Secours Depaul, TCC, Norfolk, Virginia
4. Ollie Steele Burden Manor, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
5. Alexian Village of Tennessee, Signal Mountain, Tennessee

Top 5 Catholic Nursing Homes in the Midwest Region

1. Auburn Home in Waconia, Waconia, Minnesota
2. Clement Manor Health Care Center, Greenfield, Wisconsin
3. St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Bloomington, Illinois
4. St. Margaret Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Benedictine Health Center Innsbruck, New Brighton, Minnesota

Top 5 Catholic Nursing Homes in the West Region

1. Holy Rosary Extended Care Unit, Miles City, Montana
2. Providence Little Co of Mary Transitional Care Center, Torrance, California
3. Mount St. Francis Nursing Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado
4. Providence Holy Cross Medical Center D/P SNF, Mission Hills, California
5. Providence Extended Care, Anchorage, Alaska

State Overview

Thirty-three of the fifty states have at least one Catholic nursing home. Minnesota, Illinois and New York have the most Catholic nursing homes in total, while North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska have the most facilities relative to population. In terms of the total number of beds in Catholic nursing homes, New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota have the most beds, while North Dakota, South Dakota and New Hampshire have the most beds relative to population. On a population adjusted basis, North Dakota and South Dakota have by far the best availability of Catholic nursing home beds. More detail about the availability of Catholic nursing homes is available in Table 6 (Availability of Catholic Nursing Homes and Nursing Home Beds by State) below. There are 17 states (as well as the District of Columbia) that do not have any Catholic nursing homes, which are not included in the state tables below.

Table 6 – Availability of Catholic Nursing Homes and Nursing Home Beds by State

State Rankings

Of the 33 states that had at least one Catholic nursing home, 21 of those states received an elite grade (which is defined as A- or better) for its Catholic facilities. State rankings are displayed below for the states with the highest rated facilities, as well as the most elite facilities. We excluded states with fewer than four Catholic nursing homes from these rankings.

Top 10 States for Catholic Nursing Homes

1. Wisconsin (A)
2. Minnesota (A)
3. South Dakota (A)
4. New Hampshire (A)
5. Illinois (A-)
6. North Dakota (A-)
7. Michigan (A-)
8. Iowa (A-)
9. Indiana (A-)
10. New York (A-)

Top 10 States with the Most Elite Catholic Nursing Homes (Overall Grade A- or Better)

1. Minnesota (12)
2. Illinois (8)
3. Wisconsin (7)
4. New York (6)
5. Ohio (5)
6. New Hampshire (4)
7. Iowa (4)
8. Virginia (4)
9. (tie) South Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Massachusetts, Louisiana, California (3 each)

In 25 out of the 33 states with Catholic nursing homes, the Catholic nursing home(s) in the state received a more favorable overall grade than the state’s overall grade (which reflects all nursing homes in the state). Not a single state had a Catholic nursing home average overall grade of below B-. More information about the breakdowns of grades by state can be found in Table 7 (Catholic Nursing Home Quality Assessments by State) below.

Table 7 – Catholic Nursing Home Quality Assessments by State

In three states- Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota- the top-rated nursing home in the entire state is a Catholic facility. In Louisiana, Montana and Massachusetts, there is at least one (Louisiana has two) Catholic nursing home ranked among the top five facilities. An additional ten states- Illinois, Virginia, Michigan, North Dakota, Alaska, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire and West Virginia- have at least one Catholic facility ranked in the top ten. These are impressive accomplishments when you consider that there are nearly 16,000 nursing homes in the nation, with an average of more than 300 per state.

Sixteen of the 33 states that have at least one Catholic nursing home also had at least one Catholic nursing home ranked in the top ten nursing homes overall in their state, with South Dakota and Louisiana each having two Catholic nursing homes in the state’s top ten. Remarkably, 72 of the 139 Catholic nursing homes in the United States are rated as the top ranked nursing home in the town or city where the facility is located, while 108 are ranked in the top three facilities in their respective cities.

In fact, 30 of the 33 states that have a Catholic nursing home have at least one town or city where the highest rated facility is a Catholic nursing home. This includes four states- Minnesota (10), Illinois (7), Wisconsin (6) and New York (5)- which have at least five towns or cities where the top-rated nursing home is a Catholic facility. Major cities where the top-rated nursing home is a Catholic facility include Cincinnati (OH), Baltimore (MD), Manchester (NH), Albany (NY) and Anchorage (AK), while Chicago (IL), Grand Rapids (MI), Pittsburgh (PA) and Baton Rouge (LA) all have Catholic facilities ranked among the top three nursing homes in the city.

Conclusion

Catholic nursing homes performed better than both other Christian nursing homes and non-religious affiliated nursing homes in our analysis. It is worth noting that Catholic nursing homes on average also were graded well above other nursing homes in the grading system used by CMS. Below is a directory of Catholic nursing homes sorted by state, along with additional information about facility grades, website addresses, contact information and whether each facility accepts Medicare or Medicaid. We hope this directory will be a resource for people who are looking to learn more about Catholic nursing homes.

You can find a listing of all Catholic and other Christian nursing homes in our Catholic Senior Living Resource Directory or a listing of Catholic nursing homes ranked by EG Overall Grade on our resources page. Please note that we grant a universal license to third parties (subject to the license contained in the footer of the document) use our Catholic Senior Living Resource Directory so please feel free to post that document on your own website if you would like to spread awareness of the names and locations of Catholic nursing homes.