This article is available as part of your SHN+ membership This week, Walmart announced the closure of its Walmart Health business, which will shutter 51 health centers across five states. The news is part of a reckoning that is unfolding in the health care sector, with implications for senior living. The health care reckoning can […]
Optum
I recently wrote about the senior living implications of Option Care’s planned acquisition of home health giant Amedisys (Nasdaq: AMED). The situation became even more interesting last week, with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum arm making an all-cash play for Amedisys.This news makes it more evident than ever that senior living providers must have business strategies that […]
The last week brought major health care business news — including the creation of a new home health giant valued at nearly $10 billion — that bears careful consideration by senior living providers. The new at-home care organization is being created through the merger of Option Care Health (Nasdaq: OPCH), a major provider of home […]
When Chad Solvie and his wife began operating three senior living communities in Washington state, one of their biggest challenges was ensuring consistent, quality care for their residents, who are mostly low-income seniors on Medicaid and Medicare. “Our providers were kind of a hodgepodge,” says Solvie, president and CEO of the privately owned Cascade Senior […]
Lifespark recently announced the hire of Matt Nyquist, a former leader with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum arm, as chief population health officer. Nyquist will help lead Lifespark’s expansion to states beyond its home base of Minnesota later this year. Lifespark’s growth will mark another milestone in senior living’s evolution toward being more integrated within population health […]
When seniors make the hard decision to leave their lifelong homes and move into a senior living community, one of their driving motivators is avoiding seclusion. Yet many senior living residents still struggle with loneliness and its negative impacts on mental and physical health. This was true even before the pandemic. A study in 2020 […]
Senior living operators have been enacting changes in operations since the Covid-19 pandemic began, but some adaptations have been fleeting while others have proven longer-lasting. Recent conversations with several executives — including with large providers such as Brookdale, Frontier and Senior Lifestyle — highlight that operators now have committed to new practices across essentially every […]
Last week brought the news that UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is acquiring home health care provider LHC Group (Nasdaq: LHCG) for $5.4 billion. The deal is among the strongest signals yet that the ongoing shift to in-home senior care is accelerating — and that time is running out for senior living operators to adapt or […]
Medicare Advantage (MA) is complex, and there are many risks for senior living providers involved in joining or starting a plan. But the risks are perhaps even greater for senior living providers who wait on the sidelines for others to figure it out, according to Juniper Communities Founder and CEO Lynne Katzmann. “If you wait […]
As senior living providers assess how they can seize new opportunities in Medicare Advantage (MA), they should consider one of the nation’s largest insurance companies an interested potential partner. Indianapolis-based Anthem Inc. (NYSE: ANTM) is the largest for-profit managed health company under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield umbrella. It is also the most prominent […]