By waiving the three-day stay requirement for post-acute skilled nursing coverage under Medicare, the federal government has clearly indicated a desire to free up hospital beds by relying more heavily on nursing homes to provide higher-acuity services. Residents who require routine dialysis treatments are some of the most at-risk patients — and although this population […]
A group of nursing home residents at The Resort at Texas City, which had more than 80 residents and staffers test positive for COVID-19, are being treated with an antimalarial drug that has made headlines as a possible treatment for the illness, though its efficacy remains untested and unproven in formal clinical trials. The Texas […]
Updated guidelines on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) are causing major headaches for health care providers across the continuum, as both acute and post-acute care settings grapple with supply shortages and a surge in cases of COVID-19. Those headaches include grappling with significant shortages of equipment in the face of the highly contagious […]
Nursing homes in Connecticut will get a 10%, “across-the-board increase” in their Medicaid reimbursements — with operators that volunteer to turn their facilities into dedicated COVID-19 treatment facilities eligible for even greater financial benefits — as the state scrambles to respond to the growing crisis. The office of Gov. Ned Lamont made the announcement on […]
As the chief medical officer for publicly traded nursing home giant Genesis HealthCare (NYSE: GEN), Dr. Richard Feifer has a bird’s-eye view on the strategies that hundreds of individual nursing homes have implemented in the fight against COVID-19. Appearing on the most recent episode of SNN’s “Rethink” podcast, Feifer was blunt about the decisions that […]
A pair of U.S. senators this week demanded that federal officials release a public list of all the nursing homes that have reported positive COVID-19 cases, arguing that the information is vital to preventing the spread of the virus. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Seema Verma pegged the number of facilities with […]
Over the last month, we’ve seen entire years’ worth of rulemaking around nursing home safety, as both the federal government and individual states respond to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. These efforts have taken many forms. At the federal level, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has largely focused on removing regulatory barriers on […]
Building on individual state actions, the federal government on Thursday night directed the nation’s nursing home operators to begin setting up separate wings — or entire facilities — for residents who have tested positive for COVID-19, while also encouraging operators to use separate teams of staff members to better monitor developing cases. The Centers for […]
A few weeks after announcing a threat to terminate the Medicare and Medicaid eligibility of the nursing home in Kirkland, Wash. that sat at the center of the nation’s first major coronavirus outbreak, the federal government has put a price tag on its enforcement actions: $611,000. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) late […]
Nearly a third of skilled nursing operators reported feeling pressure to admit residents who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a recent poll conducted by Skilled Nursing News — while nearly the same percentage have seen family members take their loved ones out of the nursing home setting due to COVID-19 fears. […]
As hospitals try to cope with a surge of COVID-19 patients in need of acute care, skilled nursing facilities have moved to make preparations to take in overflow capacity from the health systems and acute care facilities. In addition, states have begun calling on nursing home companies to create dedicated buildings exclusively for residents with […]
Most of the real estate investment trusts (REITs) with holdings in skilled nursing and senior housing facilities can weather the financial strains caused by COVID-19, a major credit rating agency affirmed this week — but only if current trends hold. Various REITs have responded to the pressures of the coronavirus pandemic by taking steps to […]
One of the country’s major nursing home trade groups is advising its members to assume that unless a person has tested negative for COVID-19 prior to admission, that patient has the virus. This is regardless of whether or not they have symptoms, according to guidance from the American Health Care Association (AHCA) released on Monday. […]
The office of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday announced several initiatives to combat the COVID-19 crisis in the Bay State — one of which includes setting up skilled nursing facilities dedicated to caring for patients who have the disease. The first of these facilities, Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester, Mass., operated […]
Multiple managed care plans have made changes to their procedures for admissions to the skilled nursing setting amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with several major companies suspending prior authorization requirements for admissions to a skilled nursing facility. The changes, however, are not uniform — and that’s if the managed care organization (MCO) chooses to make […]
New research from the federal government indicates that residents without COVID-19 symptoms can play a key role in the spread of the virus in nursing homes, with more than half of positive tests at a facility in Washington state coming from patients with no outward signs of infection. Of the 23 positive tests logged at […]
The federal government on Saturday announced a plan to offer advance Medicare fee-for-service payments, as well as accelerated reimbursements, to all Medicare Part A and B providers. Under the terms of the emergency action, most providers who bill under Medicare Parts A and B can request up to 100% of their Medicare payment for a […]
The danger that COVID-19 poses to residents in the skilled nursing setting was well-documented in the fallout from an outbreak in a facility in the state of Washington. But as cases mount and hospital beds fill up, health officials across the country are starting to indicate that SNFs need to be ready to take patients […]
The Senate’s landmark $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package contains a temporary 2% bump on Medicare fee-for-service reimbursements across the board, but aside from increased funding for the federal government’s infection-control crackdown, skilled nursing facilities were largely left out of the post-acute relief. The bill, which the Senate passed by a vote of 96-0 on Wednesday […]
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the federal government rapidly dismantle the dense scaffolding of rules and regulations that had been built over the course decades, all in the name of fighting the novel coronavirus. Ideas once unthinkable — doctors providing consultations over Skype without fear of violating HIPAA, a blanket freeze on the […]