


Financial Relief For Seniors Housing
Federal financial relief may be coming to assisted living and memory care providers, but will it be enough? The folks at ASHA, Argentum and NCAL have been working overtime to obtain some federal financial relief for their private pay members to deal with the burdens associated with COVID-19. It’s supposed to be coming soon, but will it be enough? For now, the formula will be based on how it worked for Medicaid providers, which is 2% of 2019 revenues. For an 80-unit assisted living/memory care community with an average $5,000 monthly rate, that might come in at close to $80,000. If you have 50 communities, that is $4 million. Now we’re talking. For a more modest community with 50 units in... Read More »
Death “Because of” COVID
Who would have thought that a relatively short story called “Death By or With COVID” would have had so many responses from readers? It must have hit an industry chord because it does ring true. Most of the people dying in nursing homes or other senior living communities had serious health issues before COVID struck. And if it wasn’t COVID, it was going to be one of their co-morbidities, if not the 2020-2021 flu season. And then the “news story” hit that only 6% of the COVID deaths were solely from COVID. Apparently, the conspiracy theorists took to their twitter accounts, President Trump included, obviously to downplay the role that COVID has been playing. We swear, we had nothing to do... Read More »
It’s Not As Bad As It Seems, And It Is Getting Better
We have been having a series of off-the-record conversations with CEOs in the senior living industry, and while most are a little cranky about the past six months, many are also becoming a little more optimistic and see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s the good news. The bad news is that for most of them census remains at low levels they have never seen before. That is beginning to change as leads, tours and move-ins are now moving in an upward direction, especially in the Northeast which was hit first by the pandemic and recovered first as well. We have also been hearing that staffing is returning to more normal levels, with staffing costs for some companies... Read More »
Death By or With COVID
We are sure every provider is sick and tired of hearing about how many residents have died of COVID-19 in a nursing home or assisted living community. The problem is that the classification may be all wrong. Unfortunately, there may be a financial reason for such classifications, as in more reimbursement, or more governmental aid. And for those who can profit from making this pandemic seem worse than it is (yes, they do exist), piling up the number of COVID deaths helps to make their case. It has certainly helped the mainstream media and their advertising dollars. But here is the problem, at least as it relates to the deaths in assisted living, memory care and nursing homes.... Read More »