Nursing home offers prize for 5-star review

By Paul L eighton Staff Writer

DANVERS — If you like the care your loved one is receiving at a nursing home, you might be inclined to give the facility a favorable online review.

If that’s not enough incentive, how about a chance to win a KitchenAid stand mixer? That’s the controversial tactic being employed at Hathorne Hill, a 120bed nursing home in Danvers.

The facility is offering anyone who gives it a five-star Google review a chance to win a KitchenAid mixer. The mixer is on display in the lobby of the nursing home, with a sign urging people to write a five-star Google review and listing the mixer’s value at $480. The winner is scheduled to be drawn on Jan. 2.

Paul Lanzikos, co-founder of Dignity Alliance Massachusetts and the former head of North Shore Elder Services, said he has never heard of a nursing home using the tactic and questioned the ethics of doing so.

“If it’s not unethical, it definitely borders on being unethical,” Lanzikos said. “If you’re not able to generate five-star reviews based on your performance, the fact that you have to provide an incentive says a lot, and a lot that’s not positive.

“The question is, how much is good care for your loved one worth — $480?,” he said.

Jeff Little, a Salem resident whose mother stayed at Hathorne Hill for five days in October, said the prize offer amounted to “bribery.”

“That’s like saying I’ll give you $100 if you write something nice about me,” he said. “Even if it’s not against the law, it’s still bribery.”

A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said there are no existing

See REVIEW, Page A2

The Hathorne Hill nursing home in Danvers.

JAIME CAMPOS/ Staff photo

Continued from Page A1 DPH policies or regulatory requirements that prohibit nursing homes from offering incentives for online reviews. But the practice has come under scrutiny from the federal government.

In June, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule to stop businesses from using fake reviews, suppressing negative reviews, and “providing compensation or other incentives” for reviews.

Hathorne Hill spokesperson Lori Mayer said the facility was notified more than a month ago that its raffle did not follow Google policies, so it changed its sign to add, “Please mention in your review that your Google review is incentivized.”

Mayer did not respond to questions regarding the ethics of the raffle.

Hathorne Hill, on Kirkbride Drive in Danvers, is a for-profit nursing home owned by Genesis Health-Care, a Pennsylvania-based holding company with subsidiaries that operate about 250 nursing homes and senior living communities in 22 states.

Hathorne Hill has a three-star rating out of a possible five stars on the federal Medicare Nursing Home Compare website. The Massachusetts Health and Human Services nursing home rating website gives the facility a score of 117, one point above the state average.

In June 2022, Hathorne Hill was fined $8,648 after a nurse administered morphine to the wrong resident and failed to report the error to the nurse supervisor or physician, according to a state inspection report.

The facility was also cited in in October 2022 for an incident in which a certified nurse assistant refused to empty a resident’s ostomy bag and forced gloves onto the resident’s hands to have the resident do it him- or herself, according to a report.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @ heardinbeverly.

A display in the lobby of the Hathorne Hill nursing home offers a chance at a kitchen mixer in exchange for a five-star Google review.

PAUL LEIGHTON/Staff photo