Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
Good afternoon! While you all haven’t seen much on the face of the site, lots has been going on in the background. I/we are getting to the point of moving the site host for Reg’s Blog. This will happen across the next couple of days. I believe the site will not suffer any article or … Read more
TGIF! Time for a bit of housekeeping. This site’s first post was on March 27, 2009. Today, there are nearly 500 posts on the site, separate from other stuff like presentations, downloads, etc. Across the fifteen years I have worked on the site, posting, etc., I can’t even begin to measure how many views or … Read more
On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule effectively, banning non-compete agreements, provisions, etc. for employees, including executives. The final rule contains separate provisions defining unfair methods of competition for the two subcategories of workers. Specifically, the final rule provides that, with respect to a worker other than a senior executive, it is … Read more
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
Late yesterday, CMS released the draft of the Final Rule consistently defined as the “staffing mandate rule”. Earlier in the day, I wrote a post about the final staffing rule and the final Medicaid access rule. At the time, CMS had only notified everyone about the final rule(s) contents via a press release. The actual … Read more
Just announced this morning, CMS has finalized two hotly debated proposed rules into final rules. The final rules involve the SNF staffing mandate proposed last year and the Medicaid Access Rule, requiring 80% of payments for Medicaid HCBS programs go to compensation for direct care workers. The Medicaid Rule follows the original proposed rule while … Read more
TGIF! A frequent reader sent me a note earlier in the week and asked if I would drop in more clinically oriented stuff from time to time. I asked for details, and she said stuff “that is germane to patient care and operational improvements – QA/QI stuff”. So, today’s post is by request, sort of. … Read more
Monday, Fitch Ratings dropped a Non-Rating Commentary about staffing challenges in Life Plan and SNF organizations. Per the release, “Though growing for some time, payrolls for U.S. life plan communities (LPCs) and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) are still well off the pace needed to reach a full post-pandemic recovery.” Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data … Read more
Happy Hump Day! Busy day so far but wanted to sneak this post in, wrapping up the last two days of posts on budget (federal, Medicare) stuff. This being the third day and post on budgets (and last for a while, I promise), the title fits – cubed. https://rhislop3.com/2024/04/15/monday-budget-day/ https://rhislop3.com/2024/04/16/medpac-report-to-congress-a-wrap-with-monday/ What follows is a different … Read more
Yesterday I wrote a post on President Biden’s healthcare budget. Today, I thought a quick visit back to March and MedPAC’s Annual Report to Congress on payment and program adequacy would be a good “wrapper” – for now. Every year, MedPAC (the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) reports to the Congress in March on the Medicare … Read more