85 MA Nursing Homes Get 5 Stars From New Government Grade System

The federal government has given 85 nursing homes in a Massachusetts a five-star rating after tweaking the way it assesses thousands of nursing homes nationwide. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month revised its inspection process and began providing improved staffing details and new quality metrics. The changes were aimed at providing more transparent and meaningful information about the quality of care that residents receive.

Below are the five-star nursing homes in Massachusetts as of April 24, according to the agency’s Nursing Home Compare tool. The site provides detailed information about every Medicare-certified nursing home in America. Nursing homes with five stars are considered to have above-average quality while those with one star are considered to have below-average quality.

Check out the full list of nursing home grades - including those that got only one star - here.

1. Aberjona Nursing Center, Winchester
2. Alden Court Nursing Care & Rehabilitation Center, Fairhaven
3. Alliance Health at Abbot, Lynn
4. Alliance Health at Braintree
5. Alliance Health at Marina Bay, Quincy
6. Alliance Health at West Acres, Brockton
7. Armenian Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Boston
8. Beaumont Rehab & Skilled Nursing Center - Natick
9. Beaumont Rehab & Skilled Nursing Center - Northbridge
10. Belmont Manor Nursing Home
11. Berkshire Place, Pittsfield
12. Blaire House of Milford
13. Blueberry Hill Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, Beverly
14. Brookhaven at Lexington
15. Campion Health & Wellness, Inc, Weston
16. Care One at Concord
17. Care One at Holyoke
18. Care One at Wilmington
19. Carleton-Willard Village Retirement & Nursing Center, Bedford
20. Carlyle House, Framingham
21. Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home
22. Clifton Rehabilitation Nursing Center, Somerset
23. Commons Residence at Orchard Cove, Canton
24. Continuing Care ar Brooksby Village, Peabody
25. Copley at Stoughton
26. Country Center for Health & Rehabilitation, Newburyport
27. Craneville Place Rehabilitation & Skilled Care, Dalton
28. D'Youville Center for Advance Therapy, Lowell
29. Elizabeth Seton, Wellesley
30. Elmhurst Healthcare, Melrose
31. Emerson Rehabilitation & Transitional Care, West Concord
32. Fall River Jewish Home, Inc
33. Greenwood Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Wakefield
34. Hannah B G Shaw Home For The Aged, Middleboro
35. Harbor House Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
36. Heritage Hall North, Agawam
37. Jeffrey & Susan Brudnick Center for the Living, Peabody
38. Jewish Healthcare Center, Worcester
39. John Scott House Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Braintree
40. Keystone Center, Leominster
41. Kimball Farms Nursing Care Center, Lenox
42. Knollwood Nursing Center, Worcester
43. Lakeview House Skilled Nursing and Residential Care Facility, Haverhill
44. Lasell House, Newton
45. Laurel Ridge Rehab and Skilled Care Center, Boston
46. Libert Commons, North Chatham
47. Life Care Center of Attleboro
48. Life Care Center of Auburn
49. Life Care Center of Leominster
50. Life Care Center of Raynham
51. Life Care Center of Stoneham
52. Life Care Center of West Bridgewater
53. Loomis Lakeside at Reeds Landing, Springfield
54. Maples Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, Wrentham
55. Mary's Meadow at Providence Place, Holyoke
56. Mt. Greylock Extended Care Facility, Pittsfield
57. Neville Center at Fresh Pond for Nursing & Rehabilitation, Cambridge
58. New Bedford Jewish Convalescent Home, Inc
59. New England Homes for the Deaf, Inc, Danvers
60. New England Pediatric Care, North Billerica
61. Newbridge on the Charles Skilled Nursing Facility, Dedham
62. Newton Wellesley Center for Alzheimer's Care, Wellesley
63. Notre Dame Long Term Care Center, Worcester
64. Oakdale Rehabiltation & Skilled Nursing Center, West Boylston
65. Palmer Healthcare Center
66. Pavilion, Hyannis
67. Pleasant Bay Nursing & Rehabilitation, Brewster
68. Presentation Rehab and Skilled Care Center, Boston
69. Quaboag Rehabilitation & Skilled Care Facility, West Brookfield
70. Queen Anne Nursing Home, Inc, Hingham
71. Recuperative Serviced Unit - Hebrew Rehab Center, Boston
72. Royal Taber Street Nursing & Rehab Center, New Bedford
73. Sea View Convalescent And Nursing Home, Rowley
74. Seacoast Nursing & Rehabilitation Center Inc, Gloucester
75. Shrewsbury Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
76. South Cove Manor Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Quincy
77. Spaulding Nursing & Therapy Center - Brighton
78. St. Joseph Rehab & Nursing Care Center, Dorchester
79. St. Mary Health Care Center, Worcester
80. Stone Rehabilitation And Senior Living, Newton
81. Timberlyn Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation, Great Barrington
82. Victoria Haven Nursing Facility, Norwood
83. Walpole Healthcare
84. Winchester Nursing Center, Inc.
85. Woburn Nursing Center, Inc.

Notably, the agency is once again providing health inspection ratings, which were recently unfrozen. Now, every long-term care facility has had an opportunity to answer questions using the new survey process, according to CMS.

The threshold for staffing levels is also much more stringent now. Under the previous method, automatic one-star ratings (out of five) would be doled out to nursing homes that reported having no registered nurse on site for at least seven days in a quarter. That threshold has since been lowered to four days.

Nursing homes provide round-the-clock care to people who can’t be cared for at home and staffing has the “greatest impact” on the quality of care, the federal agency said — more staff, better quality. The updates will hopefully improve quality industry-wide, the agency said, and give consumers more confidence in their decisions.

“CMS is committed to safeguarding the health and safety of nursing home residents by ensuring they are receiving the highest quality of care possible,” agency Administrator Seema Verm said in a news release.

The changes appear to have had a wide-ranging effect. There are more than 15,000 Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing homes in the country, and the CMS doled out one-star ratings to over 1,600 of them, according to Kaiser Health News. Most were reportedly downgraded because payroll records showed no registered nurse hours for at least four days. Other homes reportedly failed to submit payroll documents or couldn’t be verified.

CMS is a federal agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It administers the Medicare program and works with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and health insurance portability standards.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.