A local nursing home with a history of suspected patient abuse and Medicaid fraud, is once again in the limelight. So are the patients really in any danger?

A federal agency has named the Evergreen Mountain View Health and Rehabilitation Center in Carson City... one of the worst nursing homes in the nation.

It's one of 54 elderly care facilities across the country, that's been given poor marks by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The home has been under close supervision since 2004, the same year six patients died at the facility in just one day.

State health officials attributed at least four of those deaths to influenza...but further inspections at the nursing home revealed care deficiencies as well. Later that summer, their problems grew even larger.

On June 6th, 2004, the Evergreen Care Center was raided by investigators from the Nevada attorney general's office. The "Medicaid Fraud Control Unit" obtained a warrant to search through records, looking for evidence of Medicaid fraud or patient abuse.

A representative from the A-G office says the investigation eventually ended up in court...and Medicaid won, indicating the center was at fault.

Now three years later, the nursing home looks the same from the outside, but it's since been put on a special focus list, meaning it's more closely scrutinized than other nursing homes.

Diane Allen is a supervisor at the State Health Division. She says her office inspects the Evergreen Facility at least every six months...and when inspectors show up, they come unannounced.

"We look at quality of life, and quality of care, medication issues, dietary requirements, life safety code requirements."

Allen says so far this year, her office has received 22 complaints about Evergreen, 11 of which fell under deficiency requirements...and one deficiency was found to have harmed at patient. Since 2004, the home has not had enough compliant inspections to get off the national list...so Allen's analysis is surprising.

"I would not say this is the worst nursing home in the state. I would say it has compliance problems, but it's not the worst nursing home in the state."

Allen says the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services only targets one nursing home in Nevada at a time. If it allowed more, she thinks many other homes would also fall short.

"It's based on the number of facilities in the state, so although they give us a list of 15, we as a state agency are only given finances to go into one every six months."

Allen says the most recent survey at Evergreen was just last month...and while the home still had a few compliance issues, it has improved significantly and no patients were in danger.

"This is a very difficult industry to be in and CMS requires that they will provide quality care at all times."

Evergreen will remain on the national list until they can pass two consecutive surveys where no harmful practices are found to be taking place.

When deficiencies are found, they're given six months to correct it...if they don't, they could lose their Medicaid reimbursement.

Allen says if you have a relative that you think may need to go into a home in the future, start looking around now...and try to visit the homes in person.

A good place to start is the Nursing Home Compare website. You can log on at www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/home.asp