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Staff Shortages Are Hammering Long-term Care Facilities, Home Care Agencies, and Families

The shortage of staff in long-term facilities and home care agencies has gone from a problem to a crisis. Three rural nursing homes in Maine close because they cannot hire enough staff to maintain care for patients and residents. A nursing home in Oklahoma shuts its doors due to a staff shortages. Same in Kansas. A new industry survey reports [...]

By |2021-09-22T14:28:34-04:00September 22nd, 2021|long-term care workers, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Is Congress About To Take Historic Steps To Enhance Elder Care?

Not since the 1960s have so many critical policy issues that affect older adults come together in Congress at one time. Over the next few months, lawmakers will decide whether to both increase and fundamentally refocus federal support for older adults and younger people with disabilities. Those reforms would assist those who need long-term services and supports and many healthy [...]

By |2021-09-15T10:38:08-04:00September 15th, 2021|Aging, long term care reform, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Adding Dental, Vision, And Hearing To Traditional Medicare Would Be Expensive, But Important

Congressional Democrats are expected to include a broad expansion of traditional Medicare benefits-- including dental, vision, and hearing—in a $3.5 trillion social spending bill they’ll consider later this year. The move would be the biggest expansion of Medicare since Congress added a drug benefit in 2003 and would go a long way toward improving the health and well-being of millions [...]

By |2021-07-22T10:47:23-04:00July 22nd, 2021|Medicare, Uncategorized|3 Comments

Confronting the Growing Shortage of Care Workers For Older Adults

Every conversation I have with operators of senior living facilities and home care agencies quickly pivots to one issue: A desperate shortage of care workers. The problem isn’t new. Low pay, low status, and physically and emotionally demanding work has plagued the long-term care industry’s ability to hire for years. Highly restrictive Trump-era immigration policies further shrunk the supply of [...]

By |2021-07-06T16:13:08-04:00July 6th, 2021|long-term care, Uncategorized|0 Comments

FDA’s Approval Of A New Alzheimer’s Drug Shows What’s Wrong With The Way We Care For Frail Older Adults

FDA’s decision last week to approve a new “Alzheimer’s disease treatment,” and the buzz that surrounds it, is a symptom of all that is wrong with the way we care for frail older adults in the US. Rather than providing the supports that people with chronic conditions desperately need, and that evidence shows works, we prefer to chase butterflies. In [...]

By |2021-06-15T11:54:04-04:00June 15th, 2021|long-term care, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Biden Should Look Beyond Medicaid to Expand Long-Term Care

The Washington Post reports that business lobbyists are quietly trying to kill President Biden’s efforts to increase federal spending on Medicaid home and community-based (HCBS) long-term care services. The reason: The White House wants to fund the $400 billion increase—part of the president’s $2.2 trillion infrastructure spending program-- by raising corporate taxes. And make no mistake, business opposition could sink [...]

By |2021-04-22T14:32:18-04:00April 22nd, 2021|long term care reform, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Biden Proposes The Biggest Medicaid Home-Based Long-Term Care Expansion In History, But….

In his American Jobs Plan, President Biden has proposed increasing federal support for home-based long-term care by a staggering $400 billion over eight years. A $50 billion annual increase would represent a roughly 40 percent increase in the $129 billion Medicaid spent on long-term care in 2018 and a 70 percent increase in that year’s home and community-based services (HCBS) [...]

By |2021-04-01T10:22:18-04:00April 1st, 2021|Medicaid, Uncategorized|29 Comments

What The Divorce Of The Nation’s Biggest Nursing Home Operator And Owner Means

In a bombshell announcement, the real estate investment trust (REIT) Welltower—the biggest owner of nursing homes in the US-- is divorcing from Genesis Healthcare—the nation’s biggest operator of nursing facilities. At same the same, Genesis, whose share price has plummeted in recent years, announced it is delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. It is common for REITs to own [...]

By |2021-03-03T17:52:02-05:00March 3rd, 2021|nursing homes, Uncategorized|0 Comments

A Stakeholder Commission Correctly Diagnoses The Problems With Nursing Homes and Covid-19, But Soft-Peddles The Solutions

A national Coronavirus Commission on Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes has identified more than two dozen major flaws in the response of government and the nursing home industry to the covid-19 pandemic. However, the panel, created by the Trump Administration, was relatively passive in its recommendations for how to fix those shortcomings. It feels a bit like reading the [...]

By |2020-09-18T14:36:49-04:00September 18th, 2020|nursing homes, Uncategorized|0 Comments

A “Herd Immunity” Strategy To Combat COVID-19 Could Be A Disaster For Older Adults

President Trump’s newest White House pandemic adviser, Scott Atlas, reportedly is advocating for the strategy of building “herd immunity” to stop the spread of coronavirus. Atlas, who is a neuroradiologist and fellow at the Hoover Institution, would allow the virus to spread as widely and quickly as possible to build immunity in the overall population. Think of it as the [...]

By |2020-09-03T10:59:50-04:00September 3rd, 2020|Health Care, Uncategorized|0 Comments