Washington, District of Columbia — Nearly one in five nursing home residents lives in a rural community, but the number of facilities serving those areas has been shrinking for years, according to a new KFF analysis that puts fresh numbers behind a problem many operators have warned about for decades. KFF found that the total number of nursing homes nationwide fell from 15,643 in 2015 to 14,742 in 2025. Rural communities saw a steeper drop than urban ones, with the number of rural nursing homes declining by 9% over that period, compared with a 4% decline in urban areas. The…
Author: Sarah K
Denver, Colorado — Long-term care nurses are committed to their residents. But they’re burning out under a weight of paperwork, staffing shortages, and leadership gaps — and a new survey says the line between staying and leaving often comes down to one person: their supervisor. The findings come from a nationwide survey of nearly 500 nurses and certified nurse aides, conducted last November by the American Association of Post-Acute Care Nursing in collaboration with Long Term Care 100. The results were unveiled this week at the LTC 100 Leadership Conference in Denver. The numbers tell a complicated story. A solid…
Washington, D.C. — Families searching for a nursing home often turn to Medicare’s star ratings as a starting point. But a new academic study says those ratings are far less reliable than most people assume — and the problems run deeper than a single bad score. The research, published recently and covered by financial analysts, found that nursing home star ratings are highly volatile. Very few facilities held the same rating from one year to the next. Roughly half of nursing homes with one-star ratings gained at least one star within six months. About half of five-star facilities lost one…
Washington, D.C. — When Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill last summer, it cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over a decade. To soften the blow for rural America, lawmakers tucked in a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program — a five-year fund intended to shore up the small hospitals, community health centers, and nursing homes that rural residents depend on. But a new investigation published Monday by KFF Health News raises a troubling question: Is that money actually reaching small providers, or is it being routed to corporate giants instead? Big Business Eyes the Rural Health Pot At…
Atlanta, Georgia — At A.G. Rhodes, a nonprofit nursing home network based in Georgia, immigrants make up 40% of the workforce. That number isn’t a statistic to management — it’s a daily reality. So when federal immigration policy started shifting in ways that directly affect nursing home workers, leadership didn’t need a report to feel it. “A lot of our staff are in visa programs,” said CEO Reginald Cateau. “The impact is obvious, right? If a significant percentage of nursing home staff are immigrant workers, and if those immigrant visas are in jeopardy, then we lose a lot of staff…
Washington, D.C. — A group of physician-lawmakers from both parties introduced legislation this week aimed at reining in Medicare Advantage plans that routinely delay or deny care for nursing home residents — the kind of care that operators say should never require a fight in the first place. The Medicare Advantage Improvement Act of 2026, introduced Wednesday, takes direct aim at prior authorization barriers, coverage denials, and payment clawbacks that have long frustrated skilled nursing facilities trying to get their patients covered. What the bill would do The legislation includes a range of protections: preventing delays and denials of medically…
Pleasantville, New Jersey — A New Jersey nursing home is taking the federal government to court over a practice that operators across the country say is quietly draining their revenue: using third-party audits of payroll data to knock down star ratings — and, with them, admissions and income. Our Lady’s Center for Rehabilitation & Healthcare filed suit against the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, arguing the agency has overstepped its authority by penalizing facilities through its Five-Star Quality Rating System when Payroll Based Journal data doesn’t pass muster in audits. The facility says it expects to lose $450,000 in…
Washington, D.C. — For families who lost loved ones in New York nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Monday brought another painful ending to a years-long legal fight. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a wrongful death lawsuit targeting former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration and the Greater New York Hospital Association over a March 2020 directive that ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients returning from hospitals. The high court’s refusal to take up the case means lower court rulings — which dismissed the suit on qualified immunity grounds — now stand. The Case Behind the Decision The lawsuit…
Davenport, Iowa — A nursing home with a well-documented history of failing its residents is in trouble again. This time, state inspectors found 18 violations in a single visit — including an attempt to evict a resident by sending him to a homeless shelter. The Ivy at Davenport was inspected last month as part of its routine annual recertification review by the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing. Inspectors walked away with citations for 18 separate state and federal regulatory failures, along with $29,750 in state fines. Those penalties are currently on hold while CMS determines whether federal fines…
Little Rock, Arkansas — Doris Coulson was a retired nurse who understood, better than most, what real care looked like. She had spent her career providing it. When she became a patient herself at a nursing home owned by New Jersey businessman Joseph Schwartz, her family expected the same. What they got instead was a death that should never have happened. Staff fed Coulson solid food despite explicit medical orders prohibiting it. She died. An autopsy found scrambled eggs in her lungs. Her family sued and eventually won a judgment of nearly $19 million. That was six years ago. They’ve…
