Signing Off For The Decade
The past decade has been quite the ride, but we are ready for the roaring 2020s. Can you believe it? We are just a few days from leaving this decade and entering the 2020s. That will be a relief, because calling the past decade the 20-teens, or whatever, just never sounded right. But what a decade it was. It started with coming out of the worst financial calamity in 70 years, with nobody knowing what would happen next. Capital dried up, values dropped, M&A activity almost disappeared, development came to a standstill, at least for some, and unemployment soared. But look what happened. Talk about resiliency. Capital is more abundant today than ever in the past. Values are mostly... Read More »
Seniors Housing Rates: Actual vs. Asking
For years, NIC MAP has been presenting quarterly changes in seniors housing asking rates, but it is now trying to get beyond that and get the actual rental rates. That will add a lot more needed transparency. As many of you know, NIC is working hard to develop its database of actual rents in seniors housing as opposed to the “asking” rents that have been used in their NIC Map numbers for years. This is very important because not until the market sees the actual rents communities are getting will we have a better understanding of the extent of price discounting in various markets. We have been a little vocal about the asking rent number because when times are tough, like they... Read More »
Negative Operating Margins for SNFs?
Always be careful about terminology in health care, and make sure you understand what things mean, like operating margin. It is always important to understand the definitions of certain terms, especially when it comes to health care. There has been a lot of news lately about how the median “operating margin” for skilled nursing facilities nationally has now sunk below zero. I have to admit, this drives me crazy. The implication is that for the median nursing facility, it is operating at a breakeven level….from operations. Operations are usually defined as labor, food, maintenance, utilities, basically everything that is needed to “operate” the facility. As I said last week, if half... Read More »
Required Staffing Increases, Now?
This is no time for Congress to start penalizing skilled nursing facilities and raising staffing minimums. Are people in our nation’s capital really that out of touch with reality on the ground? Yes. Finding quality staff is hard enough in skilled nursing facilities, but then getting reimbursed to pay for them is even harder. So, my senator from Connecticut is a co-sponsor of the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act. Now, who doesn’t want quality care for nursing home residents? I assume everyone, except those who would like to put the sector out of business. For your standard 120-bed nursing facility, the bill proposes having three RNs om duty at night, four during the... Read More »
Recent Congressional Testimony
Skilled nursing gets hammered, again, in Congressional hearings, but they avoid the biggest problem: lack of funding. So, did you think I was going to talk about the impeachment hearings? No way. That would be too easy. I’m talking about hearings on the cost of caring for the elderly. Of course, a few of the people testifying had very little positive to say of nursing facilities and the quality of care. But what struck me as odd was that there was not one representative of the skilled nursing industry there. You would think that a large chain CEO might have been invited, or perhaps Mark Parkinson of the American Health Care Association. Maybe they were, but I kind of doubt it.... Read More »Schedule a demo
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