60 Seconds with Swett: CMS Raises the Minimum Staffing Mandate
On Monday, CMS came out with its final minimum staffing standards for nursing homes, but the eventual outcome is anything but final. Despite the outcry from nursing home providers from the previous proposed mandate of three hours per resident per day, asking simple questions like how can we pay for this and where will this newly needed staff come from, CMS has now raised the minimum to 3.48 hours per resident day, which includes .55 hours for an RN and 2.45 hours that can be fulfilled by a nurse aid, now including LPNs, which were excluded from the prior version of the rule. It will also require facilities to have a registered nurse onsite 24/7. The rule will be implemented gradually over... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Battle of the Brokers
This Thursday, April 18th at 1pm ET, The SeniorCare Investor will be hosting its first ever Quarterly Investor Call, a virtual event available to our readers that will bring together the latest M&A and valuation data from our platform LevinPro LTC, relevant deal case studies and a robust Q&A period with our audience. Editor-at-large Steve Monroe and I will be joined by three active brokers, Ryan Maconachy of Newmark, Matt Alley of SLIB and Alex Florea of Blueprint, to discuss the current dealmaking environment, everything from the transaction process to buyer and seller dynamics, to pricing and, of course, to financing all sorts of deals. So, if you are thinking about buying,... Read More »
60 Seconds with Stephen Monroe: What History Can Tell Us
As many of you know, I like history. And I like looking back in time at our industry. That is how in October 2020 we concluded that we would not get back to pre-pandemic occupancy levels until 2024 to 2025. It was an analysis no one wanted to hear, but the smart ones removed their rose-tinted glasses. In this month’s issue of The SeniorCare Investor, we will take a 10-year lookback at the three largest owners of seniors housing assets: Welltower, Ventas and Brookdale Senior Living. If you had to guess, when do you think occupancy peaked before the pandemic? How about operating margins? How far are they from getting back to “normal?” While progress has been made, what is keeping them from... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Private Equity Ownership in Health Care
We have long been tired of the often-inaccurate claims of “private equity’s takeover of the nursing home industry” and the too-simplistic or misleading correlations between PE ownership and quality of care. Of course there are never any mentions of the need for SNF owners to make a profit or the benefits of fresh capital injections into the industry and into aging physical plants. We have also written several times that, according to our data, PE firms have only been the buyers in about 5% of SNF deals, a share that has actually shrunk in the last couple of years. Seniors housing was higher, above 10% of acquisitions, but a study done by our sister site LevinPro HC shows that several... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Reflections on Spring NIC
Maybe it was because Spring is around the corner, but the mood at the NIC in Dallas was relatively better, especially compared with the mood of the last three conferences when rising interest rates soured things in Fall 2022, the banking crisis of early 2023 affected last Spring and last Fall most were resigned to the reality of high rates and low values. That acceptance of the present market conditions means that almost no one is happy, but that they are more ready and willing to do deals again. And we heard of more performing, Class-A properties and portfolios hitting the market and receiving interest from buyers. More than in the previous year. On the lending side, banks are not totally... Read More »Schedule a demo
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