Miller's Merry Manor

While this nursing home's overall score was not a highlight, it received a somewhat respectable grade in the area of inspections. We awarded it a grade of B- for this area, which is not bad. Inspection ratings account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. This nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This indicates that CMS didn't consider any of these deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to resident safety or health. Lastly, this nursing home was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. This is generally a really bad sign. We would never recommend this facility.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. In fact, nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this facility an B-. In determining a facility's nursing rating, we look at the amount of time nurses are with residents and the level of licensure of the nurses. This place provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below average. Finally, our nursing ratings also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically an indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses to assist its patients.

This nursing home's third best category was its short-term care grade, where it was awarded a B-. In calculating our short-term care scores, we size up the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. This score is more often than not a fair assessment of the facility's rehabilitation services. We found that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility supplied fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. The final metric we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 5.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Our next area is long-term care, in which we awarded this nursing home a grade of B- in that area. In determining our long-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's personal care services. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. This nursing home also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.