California attorney general Xavier Becerra faced a range of questions in his confirmation hearing for the role of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary — including whether or not he would support more government aid for nursing homes and other health care providers ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican […]
Embroiled in an ongoing scandal about the state’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced reform legislation that would require full disclosure of facility ownership and place caps on both profits and executive pay. “Facilities have put profits over care for far too long and as we look forward, we […]
A management company that provided financial back-office services to health care facilities agreed to pay $714,996 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act — specifically related to claims for reimbursement of Medicare bad debt — acting U.S. attorney Rachael A. Honig announced this week. The federal government through the U.S. Department of […]
COVID-19 outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities are affected by more than geography, and nursing home operators have tools and actions they can take to mitigate the spread of the virus in their facilities, the Center for Medicare Advocacy (CMA) argued in a report released on Thursday. “Since the start of the pandemic, one of the […]
Over the course of 2020, as skilled nursing facilities battled the COVID-19 pandemic, the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) was one of the bright spots for operators, allowing them to secure payments for caring for the clinical needs of patients at a time when those needs grew markedly more complex. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid […]
The push to vaccinate nursing home residents and staff that has unfolded across the U.S. over the course of late December and January appears to be having some effect, at least in the number of COVID-19 cases among residents. From January 3 to January 31, COVID-19 cases among nursing home residents went from 26,860 to […]
Long-term acute care (LTAC) hospitals proved themselves a critical part of the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic while also gaining a share of the patients discharged to facility-based care by short-term acute hospitals — even as the share of those patients going to the skilled nursing setting declined. A new report, published February […]
Operators of skilled nursing facilities for years have dealt with the aging post-acute and long-term care infrastructure across the U.S., coping with problems ranging from multi-resident rooms to poor plumbing to outdated building design. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became apparent that poor building design was more than a headache for cash-strapped operators; in the […]
Executives at CareTrust REIT (Nasdaq: CTRE) expect to see hospital referrals to skilled nursing facilities eventually return, with executives arguing that a recent spike in diversions to home health is unlikely to become permanent. Eventually, the referral destinations for post-acute patients are going to stop coming out so lopsidedly in home health’s favor, according to […]
Good infection control standards are the same for skilled nursing facilities across the U.S. — both in the sense of federally mandated requirements, and in the sense of the concrete conditions that are necessary to prevent the spread of contamination. This was true even before a pandemic that shook the world in 2020, with ongoing […]
A federal lending program for nursing homes and other senior care facilities is once again under the microscope, with Barron’s reporting last week that Washington has backed financing for “dozens of poorly run nursing homes.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Section 232 programSection 232 provides mortgage insurance for long-term care facilities, […]
The COVID-19 vaccines being distributed in skilled nursing and long-term care facilities constitute a light at the end of the tunnel, at least in terms of the clinical ravages inflicted in SNFs and other institutional settings. But it’s far from clear what effect that will have on the number of patients and residents in those […]
The majority of patients at any nursing facility have their care covered by the Medicaid program of any given state, and those rates are notorious for being insufficient to cover the cost of the services those patients demand — to the point that operators from multiple states can argue near-simultaneously that it is theirs with […]
With a change in presidential administration comes changes in policy, and skilled nursing facilities should expect a shift in the approach of the federal government to regulation. As the SNF sector emerges from the devastation of COVID-19, they are also going to receive significant oversight from the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden. And according […]
A new study on COVID-19 among nursing home residents and staff found that the cases decreased at a faster rate among both groups after the first vaccine clinic took place in facilities, suggesting that transmission could decline in three weeks after receiving the first vaccine dose. “Vaccinated nursing homes experienced a 48% decline in new […]
Nursing home operator The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG), fresh off of a year of solid operational results that prompted another complete return of federal aid, on Thursday indicated a growing push to capitalize on the value of its owned real estate. The San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based operator reported net income of $46.3 million in the […]
As skilled nursing facilities roll up their sleeves at varying rates for the vaccine against COVID-19, their clinical situation amid the pandemic is improving rapidly, a turnaround from 2020 made almost fully complete with the distribution of vaccines. But the financial outlook, shaped by dismal occupancy numbers that show no signs of recovery, is becoming […]
EarlySense, which provided contact-free monitoring technology to hospitals and post-acute providers, sold its intellectual property to Hillrom (NYSE: HRC) for a cash consideration of $30 million, the technology firm announced on Monday. Under the terms of the transaction, EarlySense will receive licensing for all intellectual property and technology sold to Hillrom for use outside the […]
The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG) acquired the operations of the 150-bed San Pedro Manor, a skilled nursing facility in San Antonio, Texas. The acquisition was effective February 1, and will be part of a long-term, triple-net lease. The transaction brings Ensign’s portfolio to 232 health care operations, 24 of which also include assisted living, across […]
When the effort to vaccinate long-term care workers and residents began to gather momentum, hesitancy among workers became a prominent issue well before the first shots were administered. The issue of whether or not workers — burned out by the ongoing tragedy of resident and staff deaths from COVID-19, personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages, and […]
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