Even as COVID-19 surges across the U.S. heading into fall, The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG) expressed confidence that its model of local leadership can weather the storm — and provide significant operational and financial returns. Despite facing a surge of COVID-19 over the third quarter in some of its largest states — Texas, Arizona, and California included […]
Earlier this year, skilled nursing heavyweight The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG) raised eyebrows when it announced the return of about $110 million in federal coronavirus relief, citing record earnings in the second quarter despite the then-new pandemic. But the San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based operator wasn’t done, setting another record in the third quarter and on […]
With a presidential election less than a week away and a pandemic still raging out of control in many parts of this country, the post-acute and long-term health care landscape finds itself on the brink of what could be both a brutal and potentially transformative winter. A shift in power in Washington could bring new […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working with the Department of Defense and various distributors to build a tracking system for nursing home orders of new COVID-19 test kits — and the supply for two of the major devices in the government’s nursing home testing initiative “far exceeds the demand from nursing […]
The world of third-party rehabilitation was braced for a change in the skilled nursing setting when the Patient-Driven Payment Model, the Medicare reimbursement overhaul that took effect last year, effectively removed therapy as the driver of payment. A few months into that new landscape, the world itself was upended by a global pandemic — one […]
The final report from the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes contained plenty of ideas on how to keep residents and staff safer should COVID-19 resurge or if another pandemic hits the United States. While some of the onus falls on the federal government, nursing home operators must also raise the bar […]
Staffing, a long-standing thorn in the side of skilled nursing operators even before the COVID-19 pandemic, has emerged as one of the most critical elements in how facilities manage an outbreak and navigate the current public health emergency. But it would be hard to tell that fact by the pay certified nursing assistants (CNAs), who […]
The Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM), the overhaul to Medicare reimbursement for skilled nursing facilities that took effect in October of 2019, has proven its worth as a mechanism for paying for nursing care during a global pandemic. It has, however, been “anything but revenue-neutral,” at least in terms of how much money the government is […]
James Love took the top post at one of the nation’s leading long-term care pharmacies in perhaps the most crucial and consequential month in the entire history of the sector: April 2020. In the six months since, the Omnicare president has had to navigate a post-acute and long-term care landscape forever changed by COVID-19, while […]
Retail pharmacy heavyweights Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq: WBA) and CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) have entered into agreements with the federal government to distribute the eventual COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents at no cost, President Trump and multiple government agencies announced on Friday. “Today, I’m thrilled to announce that we have just finalized a partnership […]
Even with limited data due to COVID-19, an annual benchmarking report found that the operating margin for skilled nursing facilities remained at zero for 2019. And given the costs of managing operations during the pandemic — to say nothing of the occupancy hit — the picture is bleak for margins in 2020. But for all […]
The COVID-19 crisis exposed countless vulnerabilities in the nation’s long-term care infrastructure, but the design of the buildings themselves might loom the largest: With multiple-person rooms the norm in aging physical plants across the country, today’s nursing homes simply weren’t built with infection control in mind. And as the industry and the government look ahead […]
The operator North Shore Healthcare has navigated rapid-fire growth since the company’s beginning. From two locations, it has grown rapidly. Now the Glendale, Wisconsin-based North Shore has 71 locations, 60 of which are skilled nursing facilities, with its primary footprint in the Badger State. The company grew in spurts over that time period, but CEO […]
As skilled nursing operators gather themselves together to prepare for their new era in the wake of a pandemic that has upended their sector in particular and society more broadly, there are significant lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 era, according to the leader of the largest trade organization for nursing homes in the […]
A top U.S. coronavirus testing czar had harsh words for a Nevada directive banning the use of antigen point-of-care COVID-19 tests in skilled nursing facilities during a press call on Friday, calling it “an uninformed and unlawful unilateral prohibition.” But Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for health Adm. Brett Giroir also […]
In the months leading up to the implementation of a new Medicare payment model for skilled nursing facilities, various voices predicted an exodus of smaller, mom-and-pop operators who’d rather call it a career than adapt to a completely new reimbursement system. But only a few months after the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) took effect last […]
The federal authorities that regulate skilled nursing facilities issued a slew of changes to the rules governing nursing home care in the early months of spring as part of efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the facilities. Some of those changes, such as the loosening of restrictions around the use of telemedicine, are […]
While emphasizing that the industry is much better prepared to weather a potential revival of large COVID-19 outbreaks in the fall and winter, a top nursing home leader on Tuesday called on operators to use the hard lessons learned during 2020 to improve from within. “You cannot ignore the fact that probably close to 100,000 […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the need for high-level clinicians in nursing facilities, but a pending change to Medicare reimbursements could force physicians to take a steep pay cut in order to continue to practicing in post-acute and long-term care — or push them further and further out of the space. The Medicare Physician Fee […]
COVID-19 is upending operations in the skilled nursing world, but when it comes to the business side of running a SNF, upheaval was taking place well before the pandemic. This was particularly true when it came to ownership of the real estate and operations. Well before the new coronavirus reality, real estate investment trusts (REITs) […]