While the health system has been shifting away from its fee-for-service reimbursement model, alternative payment programs have accelerated coordination across the care spectrum, and senior living providers are becoming more involved. Bundled payment programs are among these new models that have been introduced over the past few years by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid […]
Category: Medicare & Medicaid
The connection between housing and health care will be paramount to solving problems associated with the impending aging crisis, especially when it comes to the future of affordable senior housing, according to a report issued this month by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Senior Health and Housing Task Force. In the report, titled “Healthy Aging Begins […]
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) aren’t just for physician groups and hospitals anymore. Senior living is starting to make its way into these innovative models, and there is a lot that assisted living providers can do to advance the conversation with ACOs and ultimately join these provider groups. “Think of an ACO like buying a television,” Kevin […]
April brings budding trees and the start of baseball season, but does it also bring a change in the mix of skilled nursing facility residents? It’s possible, if The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) is to be believed. The organization on Wednesday provided a more detailed analysis of the data in its first-ever Skilled […]
As part of the ongoing effort to reduce hospitalizations of skilled nursing residents, some providers will be eligible for increased payments to beef up their services, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced. Skilled nursing facilities participating in Phase Two of the Initiative to Reduce Preventable Hospitalizations will receive payments for multidisciplinary […]
The nation’s largest senior housing provider is standing firm against allegations of Medicare fraud first brought against the company in 2012. Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD) has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to uphold a November 2015 decision rejecting a nurse’s False Claims Act lawsuit against the company for home […]
Amid recent reports of patient harm and a lack of oversight within nursing homes, a new law could start holding nursing homes more accountable for low quality ratings. The Nursing Home Accountability Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), aims to cut nursing homes with the lowest scorers from Department of Housing and Urban […]
Providers that receive Medicare reimbursements for skilled nursing services will be seeing lower payment levels next year than the government initially proposed, due to updated economic data. For fiscal year 2016, total SNF payments will increase by an aggregate $430 million from 2015 levels, as opposed to the $500 million increase that the Centers for […]
Spending on continuing care retirement communities and nursing facilities is projected to accelerate in the next decade, hitting nearly $275 billion by 2024, according to data released this week. That amount represents consumers’ out-of-pocket spending as well as expenditures from private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, other insurance programs and other third-party payers. It was calculated […]
The ongoing debate around how much governmental oversight of assisted living is appropriate and necessary may soon have new fodder. A bipartisan group of four U.S. Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), is pushing for a review of how state and federal authorities oversee assisted living facilities that care for residents on Medicaid. Medicaid is jointly […]