Columbus, Ohio — She arrived at the homeless shelter on a walker, incontinent, carrying a large bag of medications she wasn’t sure how to manage. She was diabetic. She had a tibia fracture. She had dementia tied to years of alcohol use. And according to federal inspectors, she had no idea how she’d gotten there. That woman — identified only as Resident #83 in a CMS inspection report — had been a patient at Eastland Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Columbus when staff decided to discharge her involuntarily after she was caught drinking beer on the premises. When no substance…
Author: Mordy Y
St. Paul, Minnesota — On day 89 of a 90-day federal review, the Trump administration sent a letter that effectively reset the clock — and left thousands of Minnesota nursing home workers waiting even longer for raises that were supposed to start in January. The Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board’s executive director, Leah Solo, delivered the news Thursday at a board meeting: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had requested additional information from the state, restarting its review period from scratch. Under federal Medicaid law, CMS has up to 90 days to evaluate the state’s funding request — but…
Washington, D.C. — A nursing home stay does not just cost money. For most American families, it costs everything they have spent a lifetime building. That is the central finding of a new brief from the Roosevelt Institute, released Thursday, which examines how long-term care costs are quietly dismantling middle-class wealth — and passing the damage down to the next generation. The numbers are stark. Nursing home care now runs between $115,000 and $129,000 per year nationally. The median household income for Americans 65 and older is roughly $57,000. The math does not work — and most families are not…
Livermore, California — The Department of Veterans Affairs is permanently closing its community living center in Livermore, California, forcing 27 veteran residents to find new homes — and raising fresh questions about what happens to veterans in nursing care when federal facilities disappear. The CLC, located at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System’s Livermore Division, is set to shut down by mid-June. Residents are being transferred to the VA’s community living center in Menlo Park or “other community nursing home locations,” according to VA regional public affairs director Damian McGee. A Building Past Its Prime The closure isn’t a…
Washington, D.C. — When CMS announced that all 50 states would split $50 billion in rural health funding, it sounded like a lifeline for the stretched rural healthcare system. But for the skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes operating in those same communities, the program’s fine print tells a more complicated story — one where they’re largely watching from the sidelines. The Rural Health Transformation Program, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, represents the largest federal investment in rural health infrastructure in U.S. history. States are receiving an average of $200 million each in the first year alone,…
San Antonio, Texas — Inside a skilled nursing facility, the clock runs differently depending on who’s paying the bill. For a patient covered by traditional Medicare, a care team — nurses, therapists, dieticians — can sit down together and map out a realistic recovery plan. That might mean 14 days, 30 days, or in some cases close to the full 100-day benefit. For a patient on Medicare Advantage? That same team might be fighting to keep someone in the building through day 10. That’s the daily reality Varion Walton navigates as VP of clinical services at Methodist Retirement Communities, a…
Lame Deer, Montana — Montana was supposed to be next. The state had passed legislation, finalized licensing rules, and was weeks away from joining 25 other states that reimburse doulas through Medicaid. Then the state health department quietly pulled the plug. Officials cited a projected $146.3 million shortfall in federal Medicaid funds. The decision caught advocates off guard — and it almost certainly won’t be the last cut. Across the country, states are starting to trim “optional” Medicaid services ahead of what promises to be a far bigger reckoning. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last year, is expected…
Nashville, Tennessee — Nursing home operators across the country are rethinking how they spend on technology, and the results of a new industry survey tell a story that runs counter to the buzz around AI and innovation. Rather than chasing cutting-edge tools, the largest share of post-acute providers are directing dollars toward something far more basic: protecting what they already have. That’s the headline finding from Black Book Research’s Q2 2026 State of Digital Healthcare in Post-Acute Care report, a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,220 facility-based and home-based post-acute organizations released this week. For skilled nursing and nursing home…
Columbia, Missouri — The way a nursing home’s care team communicates — not just how often, but who talks to whom — may have more to do with patient outcomes than most administrators realize. A new study published in International Journal of Medical Informatics took a close look at how nursing home care teams use text messaging to coordinate care around hospital transfers, and the results reveal three starkly different communication patterns — each with its own implications for resident safety and team effectiveness. Researchers from the University of Missouri applied social network analysis to more than 5,000 text messages…
CMS just rewrote the rules for how nursing homes get inspected — and the changes come with real teeth. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a sweeping set of revisions to its State Operations Manual on Friday, updating survey procedures, expanding enforcement powers, and sharpening the definition of “Immediate Jeopardy” — the agency’s most serious violation category. The overhaul affects Chapters 5 and 7 of the manual, which guide surveyors on everything from how they conduct inspections to how they handle penalties and appeals. Surveys Get More Consistent — and More Controlled One of the biggest changes: CMS…
