Watch out. When the government creates a new commission on quality in nursing facilities, it can only mean higher costs, but without increased reimbursement. The members of the new Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes was named last week, and the provider side of the business was not very well represented, especially on the for-profit side.
While Neil Pruitt, CEO of Georgia-based PruittHealth, was named to the commission, no other CEO of a for-profit company was named. The closest was the SVP of Clinical Operations & Innovations of Kentucky-based Signature Healthcare.
Of the 25 members, 11 were from academic institutions, government offices, foundations or other such entities that have little to no practical background on what it actually takes to operate a nursing facility, whether during a pandemic or not. One can only imagine what their perspective will be. David Grabowski of Harvard University is on the commission, and while an academic and a frequent guest on CNN during the pandemic, at least he has acknowledged that Medicaid woefully underfunds skilled nursing care. We will have more on the “academic perspective” later this week.
Apparently, part of the commission’s “charge” is to strengthen regulations so nursing homes can effectively identify and mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 in their facilities. That’s great, but who is going to pay for it?
They also want to look into better compliance and enforcement strategies with regard to infection control. That’s great as well, but again, who is going to pay for it?
We all now know that COVID-19 spreads easily and quickly, especially among the elderly with co-morbidities. And we know that mistakes that were made back in March and April will most likely not be made in the future, or at least to a much smaller degree. But one could make the case for a direct correlation between low reimbursement and low wages in the sector and the high incidence of positive cases of COVID-19 and the high death rates.
Unfortunately, we doubt the commission will want to delve into that. Instead, we bet the focus will be on what went wrong, what rules and regs can be added to prevent that from going wrong again, and defer any conversation of cost and who will pay for it. President Trump will thank the commission members in September when they make their report, and odds are nothing will happen. Call us cynical, but maybe that is for the better.
