It’s been a difficult week in the world of skilled nursing, with investigators still attempting to determine what went wrong at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, Fla., where a lack of power in the wake of Hurricane Irma led to the deaths of eight residents. As of Friday morning, about 50 of the 683 SNFs in Florida remained without power according to the Florida Health Care Association (FHCA), and facilities across the country will be forced to reevaluate their emergency plans to avoid similar tragedies.
But there was plenty of news outside of the horror in Florida, so here’s a quick rundown of some recent headlines from the skilled nursing world to get you ready for the week ahead.
A San Francisco hospital network will continue to offer subacute care after the operator, Sutter Health, bowed to community pressure — but the case still highlights a desperate need for skilled and subacute services in the Bay Area and beyond.
Sabra Health Care REIT (Nasdaq: SBRA) laid out plans for its future now that its mega-merger with Care Capital Properties is complete, laying out a potential prepackaged bankruptcy scenario for troubled tenant Signature HealthCARE, LLC, and hinting at further attempts to reduce its concentration of Genesis HealthCare (NYSE: GEN) properties.
Occupancy at skilled nursing facilities has dipped to a five-year low, according to the most recent data from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, with an even steeper fall possible before 2017 comes to a close.
And finally, Skilled Nursing News gave you a detailed breakdown of how to identify top-tier SNF administrators — and how to recruit them.
Washington, D.C. nursing home fight
A federal judge this week threw out a class-action lawsuit from nursing home residents in the nation’s capital who sought to receive community-based care, claiming that Washington, D.C. simply isn’t equipped to handle their needs outside of an institutional setting.
As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle cited a dearth of affordable units, substandard wheelchair accessibility, and some SNF residents’ poor credit when ruling against the class of Medicaid recipients.
The plaintiffs had argued that being confined to SNFs represented unnecessary institutionalization and segregation.
Read the full story at the Post.
Written by Alex Spanko
Companies featured in this article:
Florida Health Care Association, Genesis HealthCare, NIC, Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, Sabra Health Care REIT, Signature HealthCARE, Sutter Health
