Washington, D.C. — A new bipartisan bill in the House would eliminate a $100,000 H-1B visa fee that critics say is accelerating a healthcare staffing crisis already pushing rural nursing homes and long-term care facilities toward the breaking point. Introduced on March 17 by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-New York), Sanford D. Bishop Jr. (D-Georgia), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Florida), and Yvette Clarke (D-New York), the H-1Bs for Physicians and Healthcare Workforce Act would exempt foreign doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from a six-figure fee imposed by executive order last year. A Fee That’s Hitting Rural Care Hardest International medical graduates…
Author: Mordy Y
Washington — The federal investigation into antipsychotic drug misuse in nursing homes sent a jolt through the long-term care industry last week. Now, facilities are being asked a harder question: what do you actually do about it? A growing chorus of compliance experts and industry advocates is laying out a road map — and it starts with understanding where the real line is between appropriate care and chemical restraint. New Scrutiny, Old Tensions The antipsychotics issue has dogged nursing homes for years. Federal regulators have long tracked the percentage of long-stay residents receiving these medications as a quality measure, using…
St. Paul, Minnesota — It started with a Champagne toast that almost wasn’t. About a year ago, Abigail Dahl, executive director of Amira Choice in Champlin, wanted to celebrate the completion of a major facility renovation with a reception for residents. A quick call to her local city revealed an unexpected problem: nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Minnesota aren’t legally allowed to coordinate happy hours for residents. No liquor license, no drinks — even for a one-time toast. “Imagine my surprise,” Dahl told the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee last week. That moment of frustration eventually wound…
Albany, New York — Nursing home advocates, facility operators, and lawmakers gathered in Albany on Friday, calling on state officials to dramatically improve Medicaid funding for the industry — or risk a wave of closures that they warn could overwhelm the broader healthcare system. The central demand: give nursing homes at least half of the $1.5 billion health care fund that Gov. Kathy Hochul earmarked for both hospitals and nursing homes in her upcoming state budget. The governor’s proposal didn’t specify how the money would be divided, and the industry isn’t waiting around to find out. Advocates also want the…
Benton, Illinois — A Michigan physician group that built its business on caring for nursing home patients must now face a federal jury over allegations it ran a years-long Medicare billing scheme — after a federal judge refused to let the company escape without a trial. US District Judge Staci M. Yandle of the Southern District of Illinois last week denied a motion for summary judgment filed by General Medicine P.C., 17 related shell companies, and the firm’s founder and owner, Thomas Prose, MD. The government says enough factual disputes exist to warrant a jury’s judgment on whether the company…
Columbus, Ohio — Six months after the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the state to repay nursing homes up to $1 billion in Medicaid quality incentive payments, those checks still haven’t arrived. And as of this week, the path to getting paid just got a lot more complicated. Ohio’s nursing home operators have been caught in a two-front squeeze: a state that won’t pay what a court says it owes, and new federal and state budget pressures that are reshaping the entire reimbursement landscape beneath their feet. Industry groups say the combination is pushing already-strained facilities toward a financial edge. How…
East Massapequa, New York — A Long Island nursing home changed hands for nearly $50 million late last year, with the sale highlighting a pattern that critics say has become all too common in the industry: ownership structures so complex that residents and regulators can barely tell who’s running the place. The 169-bed Parkview Care and Rehabilitation Center at 5353 Merrick Road in Massapequa was sold by nursing home magnate Bent Philipson in December, property records show. The buyer, Park View SNF Realty Group LLC, shares an address with Excelsior Care Group — a Brooklyn-based investor that had already picked…
There’s a common assumption in long-term care: more union power means better staffing, and better staffing means better care. A new study out of Health Affairs complicates that story considerably. Researchers who tracked unionization trends in nursing homes over nearly a decade — from 2013 through 2021 — found that while unions reshaped how facilities staff their floors, they didn’t move the needle on care quality. What they did do, it turns out, is accelerate a quiet substitution that management has been running for years: swapping out registered nurses for licensed practical nurses to manage rising labor costs. The Substitution…
Tulsa, Oklahoma — They’re not just places where older adults receive care. In rural Oklahoma, nursing homes are often the largest employers in town, the anchor of local economies, and for many small communities, a lifeline that’s quietly doing enormous financial work behind the scenes. A new study commissioned by Care Providers Oklahoma puts hard numbers to what industry leaders have long suspected: rural long-term care facilities in the state generate more than $1.8 billion in total economic activity and support over 10,300 jobs, the vast majority in communities where good-paying, stable work is hard to come by. “Rural nursing…
Albany, New York — New York State has started enforcing its landmark nursing home staffing law with real financial consequences. In February 2026, the state Department of Health issued its first round of civil penalty notices to 20 nursing homes that failed to meet minimum staffing requirements — and the fines totaled more than $4.25 million. That number may sound large. But it’s actually far smaller than it could have been. From Warning to Wallet The penalties cover seven quarters of noncompliance spanning April 2022 through December 2023 — the first enforcement period under New York’s staffing mandate, which took…
