The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG) has emerged as a rare publicly traded skilled nursing powerhouse, with steady expansion across the country and persistently solid quarterly earnings numbers. But CEO Barry Port is hesitant to take the credit. Instead, he’s content to chalk up Ensign’s success to its legion of regional leaders, many of whom have […]
The nation’s nursing homes lost about 1,700 jobs in November, marking two consecutive months of slight slides since the introduction of the new Medicare payment model for skilled nursing services. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counted a seasonally-adjusted total of 1,603,500 employees at nursing care facilities last month, a drop of 1,700 from […]
Sabra Health Care REIT (Nasdaq: SBRA) is in the midst of a push to diversify its real estate holdings into behavioral health assets, and despite some overlap between those care sites and skilled nursing, its leaders say operators must pick one or the other to succeed. On paper, adapting a portion of a skilled nursing […]
Occupancy at the nation’s nursing homes stayed flat between the most recent two quarters, but the proportion of residents covered under Medicaid hit a record high — while the share of bread-and-butter Medicare residents fell to a record low. Medicaid accounted for exactly two-thirds, or 67.6%, of resident days at nursing facilities in the third […]
More than 40% of skilled nursing facility operators and vendors have laid off therapy staff amid the shift to a new Medicare payment model, a recent Skilled Nursing News poll found, but more staff cuts may not be part of their plans for the new year. When asked if they planned on laying off therapy […]
The Portopiccolo Group recently expanded its skilled nursing ownership footprint with the assistance of Capital Funding Group, which bankrolled the acquisition of a Virginia facility and the refinance of a second property in Kentucky. The $14.5 million bridge-to-Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) loan allowed the Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based Portopiccolo purchase Emporia Manor, a […]
The new Medicare payment model for nursing homes has brought significant upheaval around therapy provision — an outcome that one prominent CEO in the space says therapy companies should have seen coming sooner. Given all of the warning signs from Washington and Baltimore — dating back to when the federal government was planning on implementing […]
News of therapy layoffs swept through the skilled nursing industry in the weeks after the implementation of the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM), and a new poll from Skilled Nursing News finds that more than 40% of operators and therapy vendors have made some kind of staffing reductions post-October 1. A little more than 43% of […]
Total spending on health care in the United States increased by 4.6% in 2018, a faster rate than the previous year — but at the same time, nursing homes and other post-acute care settings saw spending growth slow down from 2017. All payer sources laid out a total of $168.5 billion on care at nursing […]
A greater percentage of skilled nursing facilities will receive Medicare payment cuts under a key value-based payment model in fiscal year 2020, according to a new set of government data. Of the more than 12,000 nursing homes nationwide that reported sufficient data, 77% — or 9,878 — will receive some kind of reimbursement reduction related […]
For the past few public earnings calls, analysts have peppered executives at LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC) with questions about the ongoing bankruptcies of skilled nursing tenants Senior Care Centers and Preferred Care, which have proven to be long-running issues for the real estate investment trust (REIT). But with a plan in place to sell off […]
A new law in New York State will require nursing home operators to provide detailed information about their physician privileges to residents as a prerequisite for admission. Signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo late last month, the update to the state’s public health law means that skilled nursing facilities can’t accept residents until they […]
Robert Specht had spent years at the financial helm of companies in a variety of spaces, but he was a post-acute and long-term care newcomer when he accepted a crash course in the business: a consulting position for a 33-building senior housing and care chain in receivership. Working with Health Dimensions Group, the provider and […]
PruittHealth spent 2019 celebrating its 50th anniversary in the post-acute and long-term care space, but second-generation CEO Neil Pruitt, Jr. says his company — along with the rest of the industry — must focus on novel and creative strategies for surviving into the future. Pruitt sees potential in a variety of forward-thinking initiatives, from the […]
Massachusetts has been at the forefront of nursing home stress over the last few years, and a new government report illustrated a host of negative statistics — from cratering utilization to median margins as low as -10% for the worst-performing properties. In terms of total resident days, nursing facility utilization in Massachusetts dropped 5.4% between […]
Confusion continues to reign over the final set of new requirements for Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes, as the federal government disclosed that it will have very little ability to enforce the rules until the middle of next year. The third and last update to the Requirements of Participation (RoPs) is set to take effect […]
The long-term and post-acute care industry’s reaction to a new federal abuse warning icon for nursing homes was swift and negative when the plan was first announced last month — and now another voice has entered the fray to claim that the icons may actually do more harm than good. Leaders from AMDA, the Society […]
Earlier this fall, a decades-old annual survey of nursing home finances revealed that for the first time, the median operating margin for the nation’s skilled nursing facilities fell below zero. While the statistics from consulting firm CLA weren’t necessarily surprising, given the micro- and macro-level challenges facing nursing home operators over the last decade, that […]
The former nursing home owner behind the largest criminal health care fraud case in U.S. history had already received a 20-year prison sentence, but a federal judge on Thursday added a $44 million payment to the punishment. Philip Esformes, who once ran a skilled nursing facility and assisted living chain with locations from Miami to […]
The first round of claims data under the new Medicare payment model for nursing homes shows that the majority of operators are seeing reimbursement boosts — while some are also making key billing mistakes that could result in missed payments for certain services. The average skilled nursing facility saw Medicare reimbursements of $614.96 per patient […]