Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
A practice concentration within my business, H2 Healthcare, LLC, belongs to my wife who is also, the firm’s Senior Partner and co-founder and co-owner. The practice area is compliance and a strong focus within, is litigation support/expert witness/forensic nursing. My wife is frankly, one of the foremost clinical compliance (nursing) experts in the nation, supporting … Read more
SNFs got a little early Christmas present yesterday when CMS announced its Final Rule (PPS) for Fiscal Year 2024 (begins October 1, 2023). Instead of a 3.7% increase as proposed in the initial rule, CMS finalized a 4% increase (plus an additional 0.3%). Back in April, I wrote about the proposed rule. That post is … Read more
Last Thursday, Senators Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Ron Wyden (Oregon), and Chucky Grassley (Iowa) sent a letter to CMS asking that the agency “take immediate steps to strengthen the nursing home oversight system”. Their letter is a follow-up to a report from the Senate Committee on Aging, chaired by Casey, detailing a myriad of problems with … Read more
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
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
On the heels of a report released in January of this year, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services has created a series of regulatory reviews/quality initiatives for SNFs. The report focuses on the SNF experience during COVID and what, in the opinion of the OIG analysts, regulatory interventions … Read more
Healthcare has a great deal of complexity in terms of care delivery and clinical needs. Today, and going forward, equal complexity exists on the business and operations front. Large provider organizations and systems are likely to have the capacity and capability to acquire and internalize, expertise within the organizational structure. Smaller, single site or regional … Read more
This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that residents and their surviving heirs/family members can sue a publicly owned nursing home under the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. The court upheld a lower court ruling against the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County (HHC). This organization operates publicly owned (governmental) SNFs in Indiana. A couple … Read more
Recently, CMS announced that its Medicare Audit Contractors (MACS) would soon commence (June 5) a five-claim audit process for every nursing home in the nation participating in the Medicare program. The reviews are set to occur on a rolling basis whereby each MAC in its region, will begin by pulling five Medicare claims from each … Read more
For some recent years, enhanced by the pandemic, the role of SNFs in the post-acute/senior living industry has tarnished. Residents and families often view the SNF as a “negative place” to reside, even if for short-term recuperation. Clinical staff take a dim view of the care complexity such that the SNF is a downgraded clinical … Read more