The share of nursing care properties reporting an increase in the pace of move-ins in the last 30 days rebounded to 17% between Dec. 2022 and Jan. 2023, compared to 6% in previous months. However, one-fifth of skilled nursing operators anticipate it will take until 2025 or later before occupancy returns to pre-pandemic levels.
This is according to a survey put out by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), which gathered data from owners and executives of 48 small, medium, and large senior housing and skilled nursing operators across the nation from December 12, 2022 to January 15, 2023.
The NIC survey shows that only 3% of respondents from among both assisted living and memory care operators anticipate the recovery will be delayed until past 2025.
Earlier in January, NIC released occupancy data points, which detailed that in October 2022, the skilled nursing occupancy rate recovered the ground it lost in September and rose 53 basis points to 79.4%, the industry’s highest level since April 2020. Skilled nursing has seen positive momentum throughout 2021 and 2022 and the occupancy rate was up nearly six percentage points since its low point reached in January 2021.
“Labor continues to be a significant challenge within the industry and some operators are unable to admit new patients due to staffing shortages,” said NIC Senior Researcher Bill Kauffman in a press release.
When asked for the most recent executive survey about the biggest challenges currently facing their organizations, the most cited response was attracting community and caregiving staff (85%), followed by rising operator expenses (77%), staff turnover (69%), and low occupancy rates (40%). Additionally, more than 90% of respondents reported currently experiencing a staffing shortage.
Of operators reporting tapping agencies to supplement existing staff, two-fifths (42%) cited nurse aides to be the most common need, followed by one-third (34%) citing nurses. Food service workers (14%) and plant operations roles (7%) also drove demand for agency utilization, but not to the same degree as nursing and nurse aide positions.
The NIC survey comes at a time when skilled nursing operators are seeing higher acuity residents, which is driving skilled mix even as occupancy remains challenged.
Of the skilled nursing sector leaders expecting an increase in their occupancy levels, Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG) said in November that their skilled mix baseline is higher than it would have been pre-pandemic due to higher acuity patients.
“A side effect of all that is, our market partners and acute care providers, managed care providers, [they] recognized the resource that we became for them during the pandemic,” Ensign CEO Barry Port said during the Stephens Annual Investment Conference. “It’s only done more to enhance our pace in taking and seeing higher volumes in our skilled mix.”
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