Supreme Court denies religious challenge to NY vaccine mandate
By
James M. Berklan
Dec 14, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court has said that New York can proceed with its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for nursing home employees and other healthcare workers even though it does not grant religious exemptions.
‘Not a shock:’ MedPAC considering 5% pay cut for SNFs
By
Danielle Brown
Dec 14, 2021
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is leaning toward recommending a 5% pay cut for skilled nursing facilities in fiscal 2021 after a new report found that Medicare margins may indicate SNF pay rates...
Strategic planning for long-term health and safety
By
Kenny Thomas
Dec 13, 2021
A year ago at this time, the world was even more uncertain than it is now. Families were not gathering for the holidays and the decision of whether to see elderly family members became a difficult one...
Anxiety meds, antidepressants tied to post-surgery delirium in seniors: study
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 13, 2021
Older patients should be temporarily weaned off these drugs whenever possible — well before their scheduled surgery, the researchers say.
CDC may be overestimating COVID-19 vaccination stats for older adults, state officials and experts say
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 13, 2021
The agency’s online tracker currently shows that 99.9% of U.S. seniors have been at least partly vaccinated against COVID-19. But this sky-high figure is almost certainly not accurate, observers...
Omicron variant, lack of booster prioritization could haunt SNFs as occupancy dips
By
Danielle Brown
Dec 10, 2021
Skilled nursing occupancy declined in September, weeks before the omicron variant of COVID-19 arrived and further threatened the industry’s recovery.
2022: What will the technical experts say?
By
Renee Kinder
Dec 09, 2021
The new year is upon us. What new areas of regulatory change will your teams monitor in 2022? CPT? Parity? Survey trends? Quality? Yes, obviously quality, Renee, but the future of quality… where...
Providers embracing reprieve as staff vaccine deadline passes unenforced
By
Kimberly Marselas
Dec 09, 2021
Skilled nursing providers with large shares of their workforce still unvaccinated nearly a year after COVID-19 vaccines first became available are breathing sighs of relief across the country this week.
Full-time clinicians in nursing homes nearly doubled in a decade, research shows
By
Danielle Brown
Dec 09, 2021
Nursing home operators have not only admitted an increasingly frail number of patients, they’ve also hired a correspondingly larger pool of clinicians to treat them, according to a decade-long research...
Fauci: Early data show omicron spreads quickly but with less severity than delta
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 08, 2021
Omicron cases appear to have led to fewer hospitalizations and patients have been less likely to need oxygen, the White House’s infectious disease expert said Tuesday.