Improving Real Estate Economy Leading to Improving Seniors Housing Trends?

Among the improvement laggards in the current slow economic recovery was the real estate sector of the economy.  Despite record low borrowing rates, home sales seemed stuck in neutral even as positive GDP growth resumed, modest gains in employment occurred, and consumer confidence improved. Starting late summer 2012 and accelerating in to 2013, the real … Read more

Reforming the Medicare Hospice Benefit

As a wrap to my two previous articles regarding recent fraud and False Claims Act suits and issues in the hospice industry, a concluding piece is warranted.  As I have written before, the fraud issues and cases in the Hospice industry divide (though not equally) between the providers committing the fraud and an inferior Medicare Hospice Benefit … Read more

2013 Medicare, Fiscal Cliff, Policy Outlook and More

Happy New Year!  Now that I’m back in the saddle, so to speak, and semi-organized after a holiday break and vacation the time has come to take a look at where health care is  and what is setting the stage for 2013 (at least near term). Getting started, Washington remains unbelievably mired in dysfunction.  So much … Read more

Healthcare Polar Express

With the Holidays fast approaching and me, heading into a break and a brief vacation, the time is right to recap the current health policy landscape.  As the title states, now it seems as if the industry is riding on the Healthcare Polar Express; head first into the dark, cold, snowy north. Fiscal Cliff: Wow, what … Read more

Healthcare and the Fiscal Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff stories are everywhere and as a result, lots of misinformation, conjecture, and supposition of deals, no deals and what happens next abound within the media.  The economist in me can’t help but opine on the economics at stake but for this purpose, I’ll take only a slice of the overall issues; a … Read more

Policy News: A Black Friday Edition

Full of turkey and the trimmings and avoiding any retail outlets, Black Friday seems perfect for a quick synopsis of what is happening with health policy.  Fortunately, I’ve maintained a good inventory of “stuff” (not stuffing, though I have an inventory of that too) to cull for content. OIG on SNF Payments: This falls into my … Read more

Five Things Every Healthcare Executive Should Focus On: Updated, Revised

More than two years ago I wrote a post regarding “five” things every SNF administrator should focus on and lo and behold, a reader asked late last week if I would revisit this subject.  She (the reader) is not an SNF administrator so she asked if I could focus more globally; sort of a “best practices” … Read more

Fables, Tales and Job Reports

Before too much rancor sets in among readers, I’ll admit that my content has strayed just a bit lately from health policy, etc. to politics and economics.  This too shall pass and rather quickly.  This post is for a friend and reader who e-mailed me earlier about the ADP job report and what it means … Read more

One Week

One week from today is the national election for president, every seat in the House of Representatives, and one-third of the Senate.  Additionally, there are numerous gubernatorial elections and local or state-wide races at issue.  No other nation on the face of the earth affords, nay protects, the rights of all of its citizens to … Read more