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

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

Friday Feature: What Baby Boomers Want

Soon the target customer for most senior housing options, primarily independent living and CCRC/Life Plan will be folks born in the “baby boomer” generation. Boomers are folk born between 1946 and 1964, placing them today, between 76/77 and 58/59 years of age. They were born right after WW II and right at the beginning of … Read more

Health Care Sector Econ Data Points

In its latest update, the Altarum Health Sector Economic Indicators, provided some interesting information on health care spending, job growth, and pricing. The data was released yesterday and is accessible here: https://altarum.org/publications/june-2023-health-sector-economic-indicators-briefs Some key data points from the report are as follows. The data is useful in forecasting, budgeting, and planning, especially in terms of … Read more

Mid-Year Update: The Economy and Capital Markets

Just a tick early as mid-year officially won’t occur until this Saturday with the second quarter officially ending, Friday. This said, not much is likely to change the current status between now and Friday or for that matter, any time soon. The first half of 2023 can be summed up through a look at two … Read more

Friday Feature: MedPAC, Single Payment, and the IMPACT Act

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) via a report submitted to Congress on Thursday (yesterday) indicated that a single post-acute payment under Medicare is feasible but extensive policy procedural changes would be required to make it workable. The concept is that one uniform payment would apply to post-acute care delivered in home health, skilled nursing, … Read more

Blast from the Past – Duties of Boards: An OIG Perspective

There are nearly 300 articles/posts on this site and from time to time, I’m going to repost an “oldie but a goodie” that is as applicable now as it was when I originally wrote it.  This is from July of 2009.  This follows well with Tuesday’s piece on OIG initiatives and SNFs…https://wp.me/ptUlY-BJ This seemed to … Read more