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For-profit groups own more than 70% of U.S. nursing homes. Industry leaders and researchers wonder whether corporations and investors can succeed where not-for-profit organizations have struggled. Or, will quality of care suffer in the name of making money?
Nearly 2 million Medi-Cal enrollees, mainly people who are aged, disabled, or in long-term care, can now accumulate savings and property without limitations and still qualify for the state鈥檚 health insurance program for low-income residents. They join an additional roughly 12 million enrollees who already had no asset limits.
As climate change-driven wildfires increasingly choke large parts of the United States with smoke each summer, new research shows residents in long-term care facilities are being exposed to dangerously poor air, even those who don鈥檛 set foot outside during smoke events.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering fuzzy guidelines on infection control in hospitals, critics say, leaving employers free to cut corners on N95 masks and other protective measures.
51视频 Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
The United States has no coherent system of long-term care, leading many to struggle to stay independent or rely on a patchwork of solutions.
Software sifts through millions of medical records to match patients with similar diagnoses and characteristics and then predicts what kind of care an individual will need and for how long. New federal rules will ensure human experts are part of the process.
鈥淧eople want covid-19 to be in the rearview mirror,鈥 one nursing home official says. Faced with a slow rollout of the updated covid vaccines, and without state mandates for workers to get vaccinated, most skilled nursing facilities are relying on persuasion to boost vaccination rates among staff and residents.
The Biden administration says a recently proposed minimum staffing standard would help ensure quality care, but nursing home leaders predict many rural facilities would struggle to meet it.
Congress returns from its summer recess with a long list of tasks and only a few work days to get them done. On top of the annual spending bills needed to keep the government operating, on the list are bills to renew the global HIV/AIDS program, PEPFAR, and the community health centers program. Meanwhile, over the recess, the Biden administration released the names of the first 10 drugs selected for the Medicare price negotiation program.
The proposal would require major hiring at the most sparsely staffed homes. But the proposal is already badly received by the nursing home industry, which claims it can鈥檛 boost wages enough to attract workers.
Research commissioned by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services analyzed only staffing levels below what experts have previously called ideal. Patient advocates have been pushing for more staff to improve care.
The May 11 expiration of the federal government鈥檚 pandemic emergency declaration will affect patient care across a broad range of settings, including telemedicine, hospitals, and nursing homes.
In-person mental health care is hard to arrange in rural nursing homes, so video chats with faraway professionals are filling the gap.
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Lawmakers are considering creating standards to set Medicaid reimbursement rates. But industry observers wonder whether the move would be too little, too late to bolster a beleaguered industry.
Rather than simply reward top-performing facilities, the state鈥檚 Medicaid program will hand bonuses to nursing homes 鈥 even low-rated ones 鈥 for hiring more workers and reducing staff turnover.
The industry has long relied on immigrants to bolster its ranks, and they鈥檒l be critical to meeting future staffing needs, experts say. But as the baby boom generation fills beds, policymakers are slow to open new pathways for foreign workers.
As the federal government debates whether to require higher staffing levels at nursing homes, financial records show owners routinely push profits to sister companies while residents are neglected. 鈥淎 dog would get better care than he did,鈥 one resident鈥檚 wife said.
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