Senior Living Occupancy Trends – A Bit More Data

  I’ve been closely watching the post-pandemic recovery of the senior care and living industries. In the past sixty days or so, I’ve written a number of articles/posts on occupancy recovery, factors impacting recovery, and factors that may further stress recovery trends.  Within these posts/articles, reference material exists from sources like Fitch, National Investment Center … Read more

Senior Living and Care M&A: Two Worlds

In a report provided by Ziegler investment bank, M&A activity in the non-profit industry segment is “up” for the first half of the year, near record levels. The report suggests the pace will continue into the second half. Compare this data to report from Levin that deal activity was down significantly in the first quarter … Read more

Friday Feature: Home Health Proposed Rule Implications

Last month, CMS dropped the 2024 PPS Proposed Rule for Home Health. Like all other provider segments, Proposed Rules function to address primarily payment, then other programmatic issues/rules such as quality measures, data reporting, etc. The proposals generally mirror the final rules, but tweaks do occur. The payment end, however, rarely changes much as often, … Read more

Real Estate Sales Report Out – Dismal News for Seniors and Senior Housing

The June existing home sales report from the National Association of Realtors paints a depressing picture of the residential real estate market. The release is here: https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/existing-home-sales-retreated-3-3-in-june-monthly-median-sales-price-reached-second-highest-amount Home sales down 3.3 percent Sales off 18.9% from a year ago Inventory available for sale didn’t change – 2.8 months (seasonally adjusted) Median prices rose again to … Read more

Staffing Level Mandate – Update

In this year’s final rule (PPS) for SNFs, CMS indicated that it would delineate proposals for final rule making this spring regarding mandated staffing levels. In the 2023 Final Rule, CMS solicited comment regarding staffing level mandates. In yesterday’s post on labor and job data, I covered how incomplete the staffing picture remained for senior … Read more

Jobs Data and Staffing Status Update

With reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics out this past week, the job market remains relatively strong and healthcare within the market, similarly strong. Unemployment remained at 3.6% and labor participation remained at 62.6% (same for last four months) and the percent of the population employed remained at 60%. For the month of June, … Read more

Friday Feature: The Good Acquisition

Organizational expansion is truly a tale of two options (primarily): add capacity organically (build or start from scratch) or acquire an existing business. Both have pluses and minuses, but when it comes to scale on a more rapid basis and movement into a new market area, acquisition tends to make more sense versus an organic … Read more

Fitch, Life Plan Communities, Mid-Year Update

In December of 2022, Fitch (credit rating agency) issued their outlook for the non-profit, Life Plan (CCRC) sector within the senior housing industry. Fitch outlooks are a primer for creditors seeking to determine lending scales for the upcoming year (bullish v. bearish). The Fitch outlook for the sector was “deteriorating”. The basis for this negative … Read more

Blast from the Past: Healthcare Leadership…

Golf outing today for Children’s Hospital of WI so a bit of recycling…I wrote this a number of years ago (April 2016) and it was very popular and resonates well today. Enjoy!  The original post is here: https://wp.me/ptUlY-kf The bulk of my work centers around gathering data, analyzing trends and working with the leadership of … Read more

Friday Feature: Affordability is an Issue

One of the largest complaints about senior care and housing is cost. It is or can be, darn expensive. The best, most amenitized Life Plan projects can run hundreds of thousands of dollars to enter and tens of thousands more in monthly fees. Rates inflate typically, more than CPI each year. Lately, rate inflation has … Read more