It’s been yet another difficult year for the senior care industry with new curveballs coming from inflation and soaring interest rates and staffing woes continuing to hammer communities’ bottom lines. But on the eve of Thanksgiving, we can still find things to be thankful for in our industry. First and foremost, after more than two years of dealing with the pandemic and in most cases working while masked for their entire shifts, we are thankful to the senior care staff that showed up to work every day and provided great care for seniors. Our industry offers a good career path for millions of people, and thanks to most providers (and inflation), wages also increased in 2022 across the board.
Second, can we say we’re thankful to CMS and many state governments for the sometimes generous and always needed reimbursement rate increases that helped providers get through a tough staffing and operating environment. There will be some missteps made along the way, some players gaming the system and others attracting bad headlines for the industry, but operators cannot provide quality care without a qualified, compensated and happy labor force, and without a profit. So hopefully there are no downward rate revisions in 2023.
Lastly, we need to thank the dealmakers, particularly in the last several months, who managed to close deals and injected much needed capital into the industry in a difficult economic environment. Plus, they’ve given us plenty to write about in this record-breaking M&A year. Happy Thanksgiving.
