Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
Welp, it’s Fat Tuesday and the King Cake isn’t any cheaper compared to last year. Nothing in today’s January CPI report bears good news for senior living or healthcare providers as the headline inflation number was up .3% from December and 3.1% Year over Year. The Core (all items less food and energy) rose 3.9%. Soft … Read more
Late last week, I ran across a number of news posts regarding a proposed class action lawsuit against the hospital/health system giant Advocate Aurora, alleging that the organization used its market mass to limit competition and in return, impose excessively high prices on commercial health plans and their insureds. The suit was filed in Wisconsin (where … Read more
TGIF! I live and have an office in Illinois, though my part of the state differs dramatically from the Illinois most people recognize. I live and work in a small town (Galena) in an area known as the driftless region. The driftless region is “original” terra-firma, where the glaciers did not touch. This area is in the far northwest … Read more
Happy Hump Day! My apologies right off for such a head scratching title but this is where I am most days when I see economic reports like the recent jobs report (last week) from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (report is here: January BLS Report 1 24 ) The news is good, maybe, kind of, … Read more
TGIF! A report I get and enjoy comes from Altarum (a non-profit consulting organization) looking at various economic data elements with regard to healthcare spending across a number of metrics (percent of GDP, time series growth, etc.). Granted, the report is a bit “wonky” but given what I do for a living, “wonky” is kind … Read more
Senior Housing News and Lument conducted a survey (November of 2023) of senior living organizations and executives regarding their outlook for 2024. They consolidated the responses into a report. That report is available here: 2024-shn-lument-outlooksurveyreport-vf.original The highlights from the report are below. The general consensus of respondents was a positive outlook (87%) for 2024, buffered mostly … Read more
Happy Hump Day! Today’s post is shorter than normal as I have to attend a funeral on behalf of one of my partners (also a very close, close friend). His mom passed away recently, and the service is today. She was a wonderful woman, mom, wife, and grandmother and she will be missed by all who knew … Read more
An issue that I have been interested in for most of my career is coordinated care, especially in terms of older adults who utilize the most care resources and typically, have multiple providers (physicians in particular). Fragmented, uncoordinated care is the primary driver of over-treatment or inefficient treatment. The outcomes of over-treatment include polypharmacy, test … Read more
As the economy continued to struggle through a high inflationary cycle with restrictive Federal Reserve policy in-place to curb inflation, providers struggled to stay afloat in the turbulent economic waters. Significant financial headwinds in 2023 have only modestly abated at the start of 2024. Labor supply issues (shortages) of direct care staff (other disciplines as well) … Read more
In January of 2022, a resident with dementia wandered out of her Assisted Living Memory Care facility in Iowa and ultimately, froze to death. The State of Iowa investigation uncovered that the resident wandered outside of the building at 9:30 p.m. the previous night. Her absence went unnoticed for eight hours plus even though the alarm … Read more