Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
I’ve done a number of presentations on the staffing challenges facing providers and how, certain strategies work and others don’t in terms of recruitment and retention. Over my 30 plus years in the industry, I’ve had reasonable (ok, very good) success in building and retaining high-performing teams, including direct care staff. I’ve been fortunate to … Read more
Yesterday I wrote a post regarding a significant (and large) Executive Order coming via the Biden Administration concerning long-term care, child care, staffing in nursing homes, expanded supports under Medicaid for long-term care and childcare, etc. The post is here: https://wp.me/ptUlY-uM . While I have yet to obtain the text of the order, I have … Read more
Each Friday (hopefully so), I will take a specific topic that has been in the news or been directly posed to me by a colleague or a reader and do a bit of a deep dive feature. This week it’s the future of nursing or more directly, nurses in senior housing and long-term care. As … Read more
In this new category of snapshots, I’ll grab some data and headlines and offer a few insights on a topic. This week is full of key economic data regarding inflation. Reading through the data for many can be a bit daunting. Likewise, lots of the data is more geeky than useful in daily life and … Read more
I pay close attention to economic trends and to the health care industry in general, as the same are applicable. One trend I’m watching quite closely is business consolidation and mergers/affiliations. In the general economy, a lot of consolidation is occurring post-pandemic. Restaurants are closing outlets (Red Lobster, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, etc.), retail outlets … Read more
The first quarter is now in the books (so to speak) and the trend for senior housing remains about the same, a little better but not back to pre-pandemic levels. With a softening real estate market principally due to low inventory levels and high interest rates (by comparison to the past ten years), we are … Read more
‘Tis the season for CMS to release updated payment and program rules for providers under Medicare. In the past week or so, we’ve seen releases for Hospice and Inpatient Rehab Facilities. A couple of days ago, CMS released the proposed 2024 rules/updates for SNFs (skilled nursing). The fact sheet for the release is available here: … Read more
Just about a week ago, CMS released their proposed payment rule for hospices, effective for the Federal Fiscal Year of 2024, beginning October 1, 2023. As readers likely know, these proposed rules are more than just payment rates, incorporating certain regulatory requirements that pertain to the program and Medicare participation (for providers). The rules are … Read more
There is a common business axiom, one I have used/repeated many times over: “You can’t save yourself to a profit(able business)”. In health care and in senior living/senior housing, challenges abound and almost daily, new ones arrive. Staffing is incredibly challenging, supply costs are rising, inflationary pressures have increased utility costs, investment portfolios are beat-up … Read more
Spring is the time when CMS starts dropping Proposed Rules for various health care provider segments. This past week or so saw update drops for IRFs, Hospice and SNFs. Recall, Proposed Rules are administrative law changes that CMS makes to existing provider regulations, typically covering reimbursement and some programmatic policy changes that tie to reimbursement. … Read more