MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Pandemic’s Costs Stagger the Nursing Home Industry
By artappraiser on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 2:37am |Even before the coronavirus swept through care facilities, many were struggling with thin profit margins. Now they could be wiped out.
By Matthew Goldstein, Robert Gebeloff & Jessica Silver-Greenberg @ NYTimes.com/Business, April 21
Even before they became deadly petri dishes for the worst pandemic in generations, many nursing homes were struggling to stay afloat and provide quality care. But since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, nursing home operators have had to spend more money on protective equipment for staff and technology to connect residents with relatives who are no longer allowed to visit. Their revenues have shrunk because they are admitting fewer new residents in hopes of reducing the risk of infection.
The result is that some nursing homes, which often run on razor-thin profit margins, may be unable to pay their rent and other bills without government help. “It could be a huge economic mess,” said Charlene Harrington, a professor emerita of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. “It is possible that many nursing home chains could go bankrupt with the virus.” [....]
Nursing homes care for about 1.5 million people in the United States, and 70 percent of the 15,400 facilities are run for profit. While the financial picture for the industry, which also includes homes run by government agencies and nonprofits, was hardly rosy before the virus struck, it was especially precarious for many for-profit nursing homes.
Reimbursements from government programs like Medicaid are a main source of revenue for nursing homes, but operators have long complained those payments have not kept pace with the cost of care.
The industry is increasingly relying on the government for another form of support: The Department of Housing and Urban Development guarantees $20 billion in mortgages to more than 2,300 nursing homes — about 15 percent of the country’s total, up from about 5 percent a quarter-century ago. (Last year, the $146 million collapse of Rosewood Care Centers was the biggest default in the history of the mortgage-guarantee program.)
It can by pricey just to keep the doors open.For-profit nursing homes often rent their properties under long-term leases from real estate investment trusts, known as REITs; investment firms; or private equity shops. A review of regulatory filings found that [....]
URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/business/coronavirus-nursing-home-finances.html
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Hundreds of nursing homes with cases of coronavirus have violated federal infection-control rules in recent years
Of about 650 homes with publicly reported coronavirus cases, 40 percent have been cited more than once with violations related to infection control, a Post analysis found
By Debbie Cenziper, Joel Jacobs and Shawn Mulcahy @ WashingtonPost.com, April 17
by artappraiser on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 4:52am
Yes, cuz $7000-8000/month for a tiny room, 3 mass produced meals a day and a poorly paid nursing staff to encourage inmates to lie in bed or sit in a chair all day while changing their diapers twice is really hard to survive on, esp. if the already owned facility is in unzoned land outside city domain. Let's say a $50 AirBnB plus $25 Olive Tree/Waffle House = $75x30 = $2250. Barely a 200-250% margin.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 6:49am
Well to be fair the way it works is that they only get that at the beginning from patients, who are quickly spent down into penury and go on Medicaid and then Medicaid gives then like a 20th of that. So it's like an upfront deposit of: gimme all your money. Unless the patients have long-term care insurance, of course, which cost them a pretty penny. I don't know for sure but I am guessing that works like with all insurance: insurance companies do not pay retail. For anything.
by artappraiser on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 7:24am
Oh I should also probably mention that nursing homes are not just for long term care, people often get sent to one for "rehab" if you're had serious illness or injury after hospital and aren't ready for home, still need nursing. Insurers usually cover that for a limited number of days. So in a real nursing home that's not "senior care", it's usually not 100% old people on their last legs. Often there's dudes who lost a leg to a wild motorcycle ride or some such mixed in. In which case they also wouldn't be getting the full "asking price" but something negotiated way down. Certainly much less a hospital or even a "long term acute care hospital" (LTAC), a new category between the two, created by the Bush administration to get Medicare money instead of Medicaid, sort of bogus, tho useful for special patients, often attached to but separated from a hospital.
by artappraiser on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 7:37am
Yeah, I remember this young guy, maybe 25, 28, stuck in this place with old people, had 1 cassette of rockabilly country stuff to keep him from going crazy along with the tv, and he was just going to be there for a long long time. The place burned me out so quick, I quit after 2 weeks. My bad, not like anyone else would have an easier time. R member this frail old woman rolling around in her wheelchair moaning, I want to go home, I want to go home..." I asked meekly, " can I help you ma'am", and she turned to me and said, "Kiss my butt, Sonny" and then turned and went back to "I want to go home..."
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 04/22/2020 - 9:05am