October 15, 2019 —The Benjamin Borden Center, Kendal’s 60-
bed skilled nursing facility that serves the
Rockbridge area as well as Kendalites, has
recently earned a five-star rating from CMS
(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
This federal agency within the US
Department of Health and Human Services
administers the Medicare program, works in
partnership with state governments to administer
Medicare, and, among other responsibilities,
oversees quality standards in long-term
care facilities (aka nursing homes) through its
survey and certification program.
“It took a lot of hard work and interdisciplinary
coordination,” according to Mina Tepper,
Kendal’s Executive Director, at the Residents
Association meeting on May 18. Mina gave
special credit to Charlotte Sibold, Health Services
Administrator, and Debbie Curry-Lee,
Director of Nursing. But the entire Borden staff
has worked together to create and maintain our
high level of care.
CMS created its five-star rating system to
help consumers, their families, and caregivers
compare nursing homes more easily. The
agency bases its ratings on three main categories
of information: on-site inspections made by
trained, objective inspectors (whose arrival,
needless to say, is never announced in advance);
staffing records, including the number
of hours of care provided on average to each
resident each day; and quality measures, including
such things as the use of antipsychotic
medications.
The “medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare”
website does indeed make these results easily
accessible. Just enter our zip code (24450),
and view the star ratings of nursing homes within
the radii of various distances from Lexington.
Of the three listed facilities within twenty miles,
the Borden Center has the only five-star rating;
the other two have three stars apiece, “average.”
Neither of these are CCRC’s (continuing
care retirement communities) — not
surprisingly, as Kendal is the only CCRC in the
immediate area.
Other five-star nursing homes can be found
a bit farther afield. Among these are the Brian
Center in Low Moor (25 miles away) and Fairmont
Crossing in Amherst (38 miles). CCRC’s
within a fifty-mile radius whose nursing home
facilities have received a five-star rating are
Westminster/Canterbury in Lynchburg (38 miles
away), and The Glebe in Daleville (43 miles).
— Jo McMurtry (Originally published in the June 2016 Residents’ Newsletter