After fighting for years to improve its care quality and avoid closure, one of the nation’s largest nursing homes has achieved Medicare recertification — clearing a vital final hurdle for its future viability.
San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center — a massive, 150-year-old nursing home spread across multiple connected buildings — has now had its primary sources of funding fully restored. While only a small percentage of the 769-bed nursing home’s residents are Medicare recipients, the recertification is an important milestone and a signal of the facility’s future health.
“Achieving this final step in the recertification process means Laguna Honda will be here to care for San Franciscans for generations to come,” said attorney David Chiu in a report released by the city Friday.
City policymakers and union leaders also celebrated the nursing home’s achievement Friday.
Laguna Honda seemed destined to close entirely after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services terminated its access to funding through Medicare and Medicaid in April 2022. The facility’s approximately 700 residents — many struggling with mental health and more than 40% not yet seniors — proved difficult to transfer, however.
The nursing home, which is run by the city of San Francisco, makes up around 30% of the city’s total skilled nursing beds on its own. Among the transfers that did occur, several residents died shortly thereafter — causing a public outcry and drawing close attention from national leaders like US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.
Rather than close the facility, a deal was struck to massively overhaul the care delivered at Laguna Honda. A 960-step plan has been in place ever since — spurring two years of bringing on new leadership, training staff, updating policies, expanding resident councils and improving Laguna Honda’s buildings.
Laguna Honda achieved Medicaid recertification in August 2023, ensuring that the care delivered to more than 95% of its vulnerable residents could be paid for with government funding. The facility had achieved rapid improvement in numerous areas where surveyors had previously found it deficient — including slashing the use of unnecessary restraints, improving nutrition and reducing the prevalence of pressure ulcers.
