Economic Trends | Senior Housing
By: Liz Liberman | October 04, 2017
Shortly following the hurricane that left many in Florida without power and resources for days on end, Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order requiring nursing homes and assisted living facilities to install backup generators within 60 days of the order. As discussed in the recent NIC blog on the order, the potential for a challenge to the measure could impact the timeline or requirements of the Governor's executive order. While the Florida Health Care Association (FHCA), representing most of the state's nursing homes and which convened to discuss the rule following the announcement, expressed its support for the measure, others object to the requirements. LeadingAge Florida, which represents non-profit nursing homes and other sectors that provide housing and services to seniors in the state, filed a legal challenge against the rule September 26. Florida Argentum and the Florida Assisted Living Association also filed challenges. Following the LeadingAge challenge, Miami city commissioners gave approval of legislation similar to Gov. Scott's executive order. Meanwhile, advocates in Ohio have expressed the need for comparable rules in their own state.
Regulatory Environment | Senior Housing | Skilled Nursing
By: Liz Liberman | September 20, 2017
The tragic deaths of eight nursing home residents in Hollywood, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma prompted a number of policy changes. Legislation was introduced requiring seniors housing facilities to have emergency power sources for five days in the event of a power outage. Florida Governor Rick Scott announced an immediate rule requiring similar resources to be implemented at all assisted living and skilled nursing communities in the next 60 days. The Florida Health Care Association, the Florida chapter of the national American Health Care Association that represents nursing homes, is calling an emergency summit this Friday to convene stakeholders and discuss the rule announced by Gov. Scott.
By: Liz Liberman | August 18, 2017
On Tuesday, August 15, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) published a proposed rule to reverse many of the policies surrounding bundled payments that had been initiated under the Obama administration. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tom Price had voiced his opposition to bundled payments before assuming his current role in the Trump administration, and therefore this move does not come as a great surprise. In fact, you may recall we discussed the potential for a policy reversal on bundled payments in a blog post in January, predicting that the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement program (CJR) would shift from a mandatory program to a voluntary one. While the new proposal from CMS does not eliminate mandatory bundles outright, the fact that Secretary Price is directing CMS to draft regulations that reflect his view of bundled payments was not unexpected.
Economic Trends | Regulatory Environment | Senior Housing
By: Liz Liberman | August 02, 2017
The focus of modern medicine has been centered squarely in the curative camp for a long time. As Atul Gawande put it in his recent New Yorker article, modern medicine is a practice in "rescue medicine," meaning the goal of treatment is to immediately and summarily save the patient. Unfortunately, in life, some diagnoses are not so easily remedied. Though in today's world, a cancer diagnosis is by no means a death sentence, neither is it a free pass. Patients diagnosed with serious illnesses are not always capable of being "rescued;" nor do they necessarily want to give up their autonomy over their own health and quality of life to the health care system. In most cases, patients have their own set of goals for the future, some of which may have nothing to do with medical treatment. Nonetheless, those goals are complicated because of illness and may be omitted from the care plan.
