CMA Alert – New Medicare Fact Sheet; Nursing Home Sales: Who’s Looking Out for Residents? More Sabotage: Graham-Cassidy Redux?

1. New! Medicare Fact Sheet
2. Buying and Selling Nursing Homes: Who’s Looking Out for the Residents?
3. Health Care Sabotage: Graham-Cassidy Redux?

New! Medicare Fact Sheet

What is Medicare? Why does it Matter? What challenges does it face?

Have easy facts and figures at your fingertips with our new Medicare Fact Sheet.  Produced with support from the Retirement Research Foundation, this is a quick guide to what Medicare covers, who uses it, and why it needs to be strengthened and protected.

Download now at:https://www.medicareadvocacy.org/medicare-fact-sheet/ 

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Buying and Selling Nursing Homes: Who’s Looking Out for the Residents?

In recent months, the buying and selling of nursing facilities and the transfers of licenses to new managers have raised questions about who the new owners/managers/lessees are and whether there are sufficient state and federal laws, regulations, and practices in place, meaningfully implemented and enforced, to protect residents.

The issue came vividly into public consciousness when Skyline/Cottonwood, a New Jersey-based company, imploded.  Since 2015, Skyline had assumed management of more than 100 nursing facilities in between six and eight states, primarily facilities owned by the nursing home chain Golden Living.  Between late March and late April 2018, Skyline/Cottonwood, which had stopped paying many of its workers and vendors, collapsed.  The states sought court-approved receiverships or otherwise took over the facilities in order to assure that residents would continue to receive food and medicine and care.[1] 

The Philadelphia Inquirer describes the issue with Skyline in stark terms: “The nursing home industry in recent years has been engulfed in wholesale changes in operators as Golden Living and other large companies, often under regulatory and financial pressures, abandon the business and lease bunches of facilities over to firms that emerge from nowhere.”[2]

Some sales of nursing facilities involve purchasers with poor records.  Avante, a Florida-based nursing home chain, announced the sale of all six of its North Carolina nursing facilities[3] to SentosaCare, New York’s largest for-profit nursing home company.  SentosaCare was the subject of an investigative article in ProPublica in 2015 that found that the company had a record of poor care in New York, with 11 of the 25 facilities “exceed[ing] the state average of 24 violations over the past three years,” and three of the facilities having double that number of deficiencies.[4] 

In some sales, ownership of nursing facilities is being transferred to real estate investment trusts.  Genesis announced plans to sell 23 of its 24 Texas nursing facilities to Regency REIT, LLC by July 1, 2018.[5]  HCR ManorCare was forced into bankruptcy and bought by its landlord Quality Care Properties, which, in turn, sold the company to ProMedica and Welltower, a real estate investment trust.[6]

Problems of questionable ownership and management are not new.  In May 2015, Utah-based Deseret Health Group (founded in 2006) abruptly stopped paying for food, medical supplies, and workers’ wages and benefits at various nursing facilities it owned, leading several states to pursue court receiverships or otherwise take control of the facilities and protect residents.[7]   Twenty years earlier, the founder of Deseret Health Group had been involved in similar problems at other chains of nursing facilities he owned – poor care for residents, bankruptcy, and abrupt closings of facilities.[8]  After checking into rehabilitation for a cocaine addiction and also serving time in prison,[9] Robertson was able to start a new company – Deseret – and get licenses in multiple states.

Skyline/Cottonwood collapsed.  Private equity firms and other owners are selling nursing facilities or transferring their operating licenses to companies with poor records.  Owners with a seriously troubled history are able to start a new company and repeat the history.  These practices raise questions about how states and the Federal Government are assuring that residents are protected when facilities, licenses, and management responsibilities are bought and sold or otherwise transferred.

Specifically, what processes do states use to review applicants for nursing home licenses?  How do they assure that new managers are qualified and competent to receive licenses to operate the facilities?  Are states simply rubber-stamping the new managers that the owners choose?  Do state laws set adequate criteria for licensure to fulfill states’ police power duty of protecting public health and safety?[10]   Do states adequately implement the authority they have?[11]

Similar questions are raised about the federal role.  How is the Federal Government assuring that new managers are qualified and competent to receive certification to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs?  Are federal tools sufficient?  Does the Federal Government effectively implement the authority it has?

As nursing home owners buy and sell facilities or transfer management responsibilities to others and as owners with poor records continue to accumulate additional facilities, who is protecting the residents? 

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Health Care Sabotage: Graham-Cassidy Redux?

Last week, it was reported that the failed Graham-Cassidy repeal and replace bill may be making another appearance in some form. In its original form, the bill was defeated as it sparked a huge public outcry and the mobilization of advocates around the country. The public saw it for what it was – a bad bill that would’ve left millions without health coverage. 

To recap, the bill offered no guaranteed protections against charging more for people with pre-existing conditions; allowedstates to waive rules for essential health benefits; ended federal subsidies for purchasing insurance; halted Medicaid expansion and capped Medicaid funding. The bill also replacedexpansion Medicaid and subsidies that assist Marketplace enrollees gain coverage with a block grant to states. 

The Hill reports that “The new bill would keep the core element of last year’s bill from Graham and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), which is repealing ObamaCare’s subsidies and Medicaid expansion and giving that money to the states in a block grant.” The report goes on to state that “The White House told The Hill earlier this month that it “fully supports” the effort, and White House staff have been attending meetings on the plan…”

It is no surprise that the Administration would support this latest effort as the president’s FY2019 budget sought to repeal the ACA and replace it with something similar to the failed Graham-Cassidy plan. The HHS budget summary also called for implementing such a plan “as soon as possible.” 

Instead of reviving failed efforts that undermine the health care of millions of consumers, we call on the Administration and Congress to work together and expand access to quality coverage.

• See our letter with the Medicare Rights Center opposing the original bill: https://www.medicareadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Medicare-Rights-CMA-Letter-GC-091917.pdf
• See the hill article about the new Graham-Cassidy like bill: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/388000-graham-working-on-new-obamacare-repeal-bill