Thank you for the report however there are so many factors that make this a major oversimplification of the issues surrounding nursing homes which you raised. I’m not sure where to start but first you have to break out non profits from for profits because there is a large difference between them and that can be quantified.
You also need…
Thank you for the report however there are so many factors that make this a major oversimplification of the issues surrounding nursing homes which you raised. I’m not sure where to start but first you have to break out non profits from for profits because there is a large difference between them and that can be quantified.
You also need to take into account reimbursement problems with Medicaid and other services with nursing homes also known as skilled nursing facilities. It is THE safety net for Indigent senior adults in this Country needing long term care— absent a long term care insurance plan for seniors this is it. Nursing homes have also changed over the years and are caught in a funny spot taking on multiple roles as a long term care provider and short term rehab. Nursing homes also compete heavily with hospitals for labor and the resources simply are not there for many providers to pay higher wages especially if the home is unionized (not making a point about unions) other than the benefit ratio for these workers is often 50-60 percent of wages so that must be taken into account. Most Nursing homes in NY are unionized by SEIU and the workers pay very little out of pocket costs for healthcare or pensions— if any costs in some cases.
With regard to the immunity shield, almost all reputable nursing home providers don’t care about the immunity shield it doesn’t work like a switch where they change their behavior because the threat of being sued goes away— it just doesn’t work like that. Either the facility has a culture of providing good care or they don’t it’s not something that can be changed quickly. Most nursing homes in high litigation areas get sued a lot anyway right or wrong and so it’s not something that actively dictates how care is provided.
Lastly, except for nursing homes (and there are quite a few) that just had poor infection control — but more importantly multiple occupancy rooms- many nursing homes worked very hard to protect their residents and staff— but Covid is insidious and highly contagious, without rapid testing every day of staff that were asymptomatic there can be no way of preventing the introduction of the disease to the residents. The disease hit the elderly very hard at assisted living facilities and their own private homes through exposure to home care aides and also just exposure to their own family too.
I think the point of the shield for litigation liability was to make sure providers didn’t get sued for being “good Samaritans” for taking care of admitted Covid patients from hospitals which needed to discharge them.
I get that nursing homes are an easy target and there are plenty of cases in which they deserve to be run over the coals but try and not put them all into one group, that wouldn’t be the case for anything in life or in business- there are good actors and bad ones.
Pro tip: The CMS star rating system on nursing home compare is overall pretty solid but make sure to not look at the overall star rating but rather the staffing, health inspections (actually look at details) and to an extent quality measures. If the quality measures differ too much from the staffing and health inspection it is likely there is an issue at that facility in my opinion— eg quality measures are 5 stars but staffing is 2 stars and so are inspections. Lastly, the inspections that nursing homes have are not easy and in fact are very tough by the state and feds, very little latitude given and that transcends political administrations.
Thank you for the report however there are so many factors that make this a major oversimplification of the issues surrounding nursing homes which you raised. I’m not sure where to start but first you have to break out non profits from for profits because there is a large difference between them and that can be quantified.
You also need to take into account reimbursement problems with Medicaid and other services with nursing homes also known as skilled nursing facilities. It is THE safety net for Indigent senior adults in this Country needing long term care— absent a long term care insurance plan for seniors this is it. Nursing homes have also changed over the years and are caught in a funny spot taking on multiple roles as a long term care provider and short term rehab. Nursing homes also compete heavily with hospitals for labor and the resources simply are not there for many providers to pay higher wages especially if the home is unionized (not making a point about unions) other than the benefit ratio for these workers is often 50-60 percent of wages so that must be taken into account. Most Nursing homes in NY are unionized by SEIU and the workers pay very little out of pocket costs for healthcare or pensions— if any costs in some cases.
With regard to the immunity shield, almost all reputable nursing home providers don’t care about the immunity shield it doesn’t work like a switch where they change their behavior because the threat of being sued goes away— it just doesn’t work like that. Either the facility has a culture of providing good care or they don’t it’s not something that can be changed quickly. Most nursing homes in high litigation areas get sued a lot anyway right or wrong and so it’s not something that actively dictates how care is provided.
Lastly, except for nursing homes (and there are quite a few) that just had poor infection control — but more importantly multiple occupancy rooms- many nursing homes worked very hard to protect their residents and staff— but Covid is insidious and highly contagious, without rapid testing every day of staff that were asymptomatic there can be no way of preventing the introduction of the disease to the residents. The disease hit the elderly very hard at assisted living facilities and their own private homes through exposure to home care aides and also just exposure to their own family too.
I think the point of the shield for litigation liability was to make sure providers didn’t get sued for being “good Samaritans” for taking care of admitted Covid patients from hospitals which needed to discharge them.
I get that nursing homes are an easy target and there are plenty of cases in which they deserve to be run over the coals but try and not put them all into one group, that wouldn’t be the case for anything in life or in business- there are good actors and bad ones.
Pro tip: The CMS star rating system on nursing home compare is overall pretty solid but make sure to not look at the overall star rating but rather the staffing, health inspections (actually look at details) and to an extent quality measures. If the quality measures differ too much from the staffing and health inspection it is likely there is an issue at that facility in my opinion— eg quality measures are 5 stars but staffing is 2 stars and so are inspections. Lastly, the inspections that nursing homes have are not easy and in fact are very tough by the state and feds, very little latitude given and that transcends political administrations.