As a leading House Democrat demands information about the response to COVID-19 in nursing homes from the federal government — and a quintet of top operators — his Republican counterparts have targeted governors whose states required facilities to take in patients with COVID-19. Rep. Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who serves as the ranking member […]
Category: Featured
As the nursing home industry settles into the next uneasy phase of the COVID-19 crisis — an indefinite period in which the pandemic will dominate every decision until a vaccine becomes available — one leader emphasized the importance of finding the upside in stasis. “We’re not getting better anytime soon, but we’re surely not getting […]
Test. Test. Test. That has been the mantra since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the flashpoint of criticism over the early efforts of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the call from multiple skilled nursing operators and experts. To contain the pandemic and stem its impact on nursing homes across the […]
Even before a global pandemic upended the post-acute care continuum, transitions between settings represented one of the biggest pain points for operators and patients. Fresh off a $60 million Series C funding round announced last week, PatientPing has its sights set on national coverage for its software network that connects hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the nursing home sector and exposed endemic flaws in the long-term care system in the U.S., several witnesses testified before members of the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee in a video briefing held Thursday. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis heard testimony from a range of witnesses on the […]
Some leaders embrace change at the core, and Dr. Grace Terrell is one of them. As CEO of skilled nursing-focused physician group Eventus WholeHealth, Dr. Terrell has been a driver of change and thought leadership throughout her career. A leader of health care innovation and delivery system reform — and believer in the study of […]
The presence of COVID-19 in nursing homes has been splashed across news reports across the country, but at least according to federal data, the majority of skilled nursing facilities have been able to keep the virus outside. One facility in Connecticut, Vernon Manor, had all 93 of its residents test negative for COVID-19 on May […]
As increasing numbers of states recommend so-called “universal testing” for nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the wake of the impact of COVID-19, skilled nursing facilities need to ensure they follow the applicable guidelines — a significant challenge given how varied that guidance could be. And depending where a SNF is located, testing capacity […]
The COVID-19 crisis has broken the cracks in the nation’s long-term care infrastructure wide open, and one CEO in the space says it’s time for industry leaders and lawmakers to reimagine the model for the future. “We’re seeing it across the United States, across the world: The model is fundamentally broken,” OnPointe Healthh CEO Eric […]
The federal government on Thursday afternoon updated its Nursing Home Compare database to include individual building-level data on COVID-19 outbreaks, following through on a transparency pledge months in the making. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) incorporated its previously released COVID-19 case and death counts into the consumer-facing tool, allowing family members and […]
When it comes to the long-held traditional post-acute care model, significant change can be difficult to envision, let alone implement. Yet when Tim Fields set out to establish Ignite Medial Resorts, disrupting the tried-and-true is exactly what he did. After a career in health care including skilled nursing, Fields and his partner have successfully developed […]
The federal government announced on Monday that it would be cracking down on infection control violations in nursing homes, with fines increasing for facilities with a history of deficiencies in this area — a move that came alongside the announcement that almost 26,000 skilled nursing residents died from COVID-19 across the country. But two researchers […]
Nearly 26,000. That’s the devastating number of people who have died of COVID-19 in nursing homes through around mid-May, according to the first set of complete federal data — which also found about 60,000 infections. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced the […]
One of the primary factors in the spread of COVID-19 in skilled nursing facilities is the workforce — specifically staff members in a facility who are infected with the virus while not showing any symptoms of illness. Regardless of whether or not those infected do begin to show symptoms, they can still pass on the […]
Two months of stories about COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes have taken a toll on the public’s opinion of the industry, a new poll commissioned by SNN found — but the vast majority of people believe that the government has not done enough to support the facilities during the pandemic. Only 3% of people have […]
While the COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes may feel like a lifetime for staffers and family members, the CEO of a major non-profit provider in New York City warned that the challenges are only beginning. Daniel Reingold, chief executive of the Bronx, N.Y.-based RiverSpring Health, described the first eight weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, dating […]
The federal government last week cautiously began laying formal groundwork for reopening the nation’s nursing homes, which have been under COVID-19 lockdown orders since the middle of March. But many experts both inside and outside the industry have asserted that nursing facilities can’t even think about returning to normalcy without substantially more financial and material […]
The deadline for nursing home industry stakeholders to apply for a spot on the federal government’s special commission on safety and quality passed last weekend, but not everyone who threw their hats into the ring will win a seat — and the problems facing the industry run deeper than any one group could solve in […]
The federal government on Friday announced the distribution of almost $4.9 billion in COVID-19 relief funds directly to skilled nursing facilities, the first specific tranche of stimulus money for the industry released since the start of the pandemic. Each skilled nursing facility in the country will receive a baseline paymentof $50,000, plus an additional $2,500 […]
When Renee Lohman, the founder and former CEO of the CareWell Urgent Care chain of clinics in Massachusetts, was seeking a new opportunity in health care, she didn’t have to look far past her own experience with a family member in a skilled nursing facility. “I was pretty well stunned by the 1970s physical plant,” […]


