Federal Assisted Living Regulatory Initiative

Last week via a member news release from Leading Age Minnesota, the specter of federalized Assisted Living regulation popped up. Per this release, legislation enabling federal assisted living regulation of some form is anticipated to be proposed by U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) prior to the year’s end. The primary outcome of what Senator Kelly … Read more

Friday Feature: Four Topics to Watch

It has been a busy week and next week is a holiday week (Thanksgiving) so of course, a shortened news and work week. That said, there is a lot going on right now and for followers and readers, I thought sharing my top four topics to watch made sense. Tort Reform: Back in February, the Georgia … Read more

Twofer Tuesday: Marketing Insights for 2025

The bifurcated title for this post (twofer) means two quick subjects, wrapped into a “what’s next” for 2025. The wrapper in this case is marketing, a subject that I’ve often written about across this blog’s dozen plus year history (hard to believe it has hung around that long). According to NIC (National Investment Center), and … Read more

Senior Living Liability Claims Analysis Report

Marsh (largest insurance broker in the world) recently released its 2024 General and Professional Liability Report 2024-General-Professional-Liability-Benchmark-Report-MAR-USA. The report includes data from fifty senior living and long-term care providers comprising 10,300 closed claims with paid indemnity and expense value of $1.87 billion across a ten-year horizon. The ten-year data was used by Marsh to forecast … Read more

Senior Housing and Care M&A at Record Level

Mergers and acquisitions activity in the seniors housing and care sector set a new quarterly record with 183 publicly announced transactions in the second quarter of 2024, as reported by LevinPro LTC. This represents a 21% increase over the 151 transactions from the first quarter of 2024, and a 49% rise compared to the 123 … Read more

Senior Living Occupancy Up: Challenges Remain

According to data released by NIC (National Investment Center) last week, senior living occupancies ticked up in the first quarter. This is a trend that has continued since the pandemic occupancy “crash”.  Other economic data, however, suggest that challenges remain for continued growth, especially within the CCRC/Life Plan sector. The NIC data is here: 2Q24-NIC-MAP-Market-Fundamentals … Read more

Arbitration Agreements: AZ Atty. General Seeks to End Secrecy Provisions

Arizona’s Attorney General, Kris Mayes, is challenging a major nursing home operator in the state with a new legal initiative aimed at ending the concealment of elder abuse and neglect. In March 2022, a resident with dementia was found face-down at Sun West Choice Health and Rehab. He had a massive bedsore − a telltale … Read more

Private Equity Investment in Nursing Home Sector Generates Regulatory Scrutiny

Private equity investment in the nursing home and assisted living sector (other post-acute as well) continues to be a focus of regulatory activity in Congress.  This is despite private equity investment in the nursing home sector to be involve about 5% of facilities. Home health has seen an increasing investment interest as well from private … Read more

Senior Living Rate Increases are Slowing: Revenue Diversification Offers Opportunities

As inflation has cooled, senior living rate increases are slowing. Growing occupancy has been a function of incentives, particularly rate concessions and discounts.  The greatest use of discounting is in independent living, particularly Life Plan organizations/CCRCs. And, while rate increases shift lower, revenue does as well.  Unfortunately, operating cost increases are not subsiding, especially with … Read more

Wednesday Feature: Massachusetts Nursing Home Residents Set to Transition to Community Living with $1 Billion Settlement

Happy Hump Day! Last week, the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Kim Driscoll, announced the settlement of a class action lawsuit filed against the state by six disabled nursing home residents. The suit was filed in 2022 alleging that the state underfunded community-based care options, trapping them in nursing homes despite their wishes to return to … Read more