Albion, New York — A stalled nursing home sale in Western New York is turning into a warning shot for states that are making ownership transfers slower, costlier and harder to predict. Industry reports say Elemental Management has pulled out of a planned purchase of The Villages of Orleans Health & Rehabilitation Center in Albion after nearly three years of regulatory delays. The 120-bed facility had once been county-owned, but under its current operator it fell to a one-star rating and became entangled in a fraud case brought by the New York attorney general in 2022. Elemental had been working…
Author: Sarah K
Washington, D.C. — Long-term care providers say they’ve been locked out of one of Medicare’s most promising cost-saving tools — and they want regulators to finally build one that works for them. The American Health Care Association released a detailed whitepaper this week calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to create an accountable care organization model designed specifically for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The ask comes as fewer than 10% of skilled nursing facilities currently participate in ACOs — a gap the industry says has cost Medicare billions. Analysts at ATI Advisory estimate that a…
Washington, D.C. — Federal regulators are taking a fresh look at one of the nursing home industry’s most contentious quality measures: the policy discouraging antipsychotic medication use in long-term care facilities. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reviewing its existing guidance “with the goal of supporting clinically indicated use while continuing to discourage inappropriate prescribing,” according to an internal email cited by The Washington Post. The report came Friday, and CMS had not publicly confirmed or elaborated on the review by the time of publication. Congress Pushed for the Change The review didn’t happen in a vacuum. Congress…
Nursing homes that meet recommended staffing levels for certified nursing assistants see significantly fewer injurious falls among residents — but a large majority of facilities across the country still fall short of that threshold, according to a new study published in the March edition of the Journal of the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association. The research, which analyzed data from 11,183 nursing homes covering more than 1.1 million long-stay Medicare residents, found that facilities achieving or exceeding the recommended CNA coverage of 2.45 hours per resident per day showed a clear link between added CNA hours and reduced fall…
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania — Even as occupancy falls and uncertainty swirls around its pending sale, Genesis HealthCare is pushing for nearly $10 million in executive and employee performance incentives — and it needs a federal bankruptcy judge to sign off before it can pay a dime. The once-dominant skilled nursing operator filed a request last week with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey Jernigan, asking the court to approve a three-part incentive and retention plan for more than 350 employees — from frontline managers to senior executives. The company’s attorneys argued the payments are necessary to prevent a wave of departures before…
Most nursing home operators know their Five-Star rating matters. Fewer know exactly why — or how deeply it shapes their financial reality. According to experts at Zimmet Healthcare Services Group, the difference between a three-star and a five-star facility often comes down to one thing: whether a team is managing quality proactively or scrambling to fix problems after they’ve already happened. They call it “upstream” management. And industry reports suggest it’s one of the most underutilized levers in long-term care operations. Stop Reacting. Start Anticipating. “Swimming upstream feels a little bit harder because you’ve got to do all the work…
Albuquerque, New Mexico — A federal judge has signed off on a $75,000 settlement against a New Mexico nursing home that allowed a supervisor to bully two older employees for years — telling them they were “too old to get new jobs” and that no one would hire women their age. The settlement, approved by a US District Court judge on February 24, resolves a case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against South Valley Care Center in Albuquerque. The facility, which holds a 5-star rating, will also issue a formal written apology to the two former workers and…
A new study published in JAMA Network Open paints a troubling picture for stroke survivors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans — they’re significantly more likely to wind up in low-rated skilled nursing facilities than patients on traditional Medicare. The findings add fresh fuel to a long-running debate over whether cost-cutting incentives baked into MA plans come at the expense of patient outcomes, particularly during the critical early stages of stroke recovery. The Numbers Tell the Story Researchers analyzed data from more than 44,000 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older who were hospitalized for a stroke between January 2021 and September…
The 2026 NIC Spring Conference lands in Nashville March 30 to April 1, bringing together SNF operators, capital providers, and CMS leadership to address staffing, value-based care, and the growing demand for long-term care services.
Indianapolis, Ind. — A two-year-old skilled nursing company has quietly become one of the industry’s fastest-growing operators, and it’s not slowing down. Journey, an Indiana-based provider, completed a dramatic 15-month run that nearly doubled its footprint — finishing February with 13 new nursing home acquisitions in Georgia and bringing its total to 39 facilities. The company launched with a single building and hit 22 by the end of 2024. From Zero to Thirty-Nine The latest Georgia sweep came after Journey had already established a strong beachhead there. Nine existing buildings in the state were running at 95% occupancy and had…
