Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
I know this is supposed to be a blog about healthcare issues, primarily that which falls in the post-acute, long-term care and senior housing world but some stuff in the news right now is just too hard to ignore. After all, healthcare reform does affect long-term care and post-acute care directly and economics, especially the … Read more
Not unexpectedly, the politicians are all a “buzz” about healthcare reform right now. The President even did a live radio/television talk-show to “clarify” what healthcare reform is really about; to translate as it were. From CNN to Fox to certainly every Sunday talk show, politicians or members of the President’s cabinet are trying desperately to … Read more
According to the most recent release of the Dealmakers Forum published by Irving Levin Associates, July witnessed a sizable increase in transaction volume across the long-term care sector. As I noted in my last post on Assisted Living and Senior Housing, we have begun to see some volume pick-up in these segments although modest in … Read more
For the past nine months we’ve watched the cap rates trend up, occupancy trend down and the transaction market remain stagnant. The credit crisis of one year ago definitely chilled the “buyer” side and as a result, shoved values downward. The deals we did see done were few and far between, lots of one off … Read more
Recess – when I was a kid it was the best part of school. Recess was a period of task abandonment; a temporary reprieve from the classroom engagement and the pedagogy. Unfortunately for Congress, recess means a time to confront constituents and to engage on the home front. For members of the House facing early … Read more
As is/was the case with SNFs and Hospices, CMS and Congress have formulated a series of proposed rules and legislation that reflects the ongoing trend under Medicare of reimbursement reductions. On July 30 (followed by the August 6th Federal Register publication), CMS announced its proposed rule for FY 2010 for Home Health PPS reimbursement and … Read more
What looks like the beginning to a rough late-summer/early-fall period, there are now numerous pending and current policy and reimbursement events that are breaking in the SNF industry. From the July 31 CMS announcement regarding Medicare payment reductions to the release of the marked-up House Tri-Committee bill on Health Care Reform (HR 3200) on the … Read more
In March, I wrote about the MedPAC recommendations to change the Medicare Hospice program and payment system. Yesterday, CMS announced the final (2010) payment for Hospice as well as the implementation structure of some key MedPAC recommendations. The final rule will be published August 6th in the Federal Register. For FY 2010 (commencing October 1), … Read more
This seemed to be a natural successor topic to my last post, “Why Quality Matters”; principally arising out of recent press releases from the OIG. For example, in June the OIG reported that it had recovered $2.4 Billion in fraud, waste and abuse. In July, an OIG release reported that a Nursing Home Executive was banned … Read more
In the past month or so I have had a lot of conversations with various entities ranging from providers to investors about the financial state of the industry. The majority of the discussions have been around all things financial – reimbursement in particular and as this topic goes, so goes expenses. Understandably the economic and … Read more