Agape Long Term Care

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November 30 2007

The 54 facilities, the poorest performing of the 128 on the SFF list, are spread across 34 states and the District of Columbia. There are three each in Florida, Georgia, Missouri and the state of Washington. Twenty-one of the 54 have spent at least 34 months on the SFF list.

Facilities on the SFF list will face twice the frequency of re-inspections as others until there is either sufficient improvement (two surveys with nothing above an “E” deficiency”) or they are terminated from the Medicare and Medicaid programs, officials said. About half of the facilities during the 10-year history of the SFF list have improved quality of care sufficiently within 2.5 years, while about 1 in 6 have had funding cut off, they noted.

“I’m careful in saying they’re not the worst performers, but they are chronic underperformers,” said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems, noting surveyor tenacity may differ from state to state. “We’re hopeful this disclosure will put he right kind of pressure, helpful pressure, on the facilities.”

Faced with few palatable alternatives, provider advocates, including the American Health Care Association and the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, quickly praised the list’s online posting. They also cautioned, however, that providers who have made significant improvement might not be acknowledged in a timely manner to avert negative publicity.

The list of 54 - which represents less than one-third of 1% of the 16,400 nursing homes overseen by CMS - can be found on the following Web site: www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/12_NHs.asp.

(Scroll through the list of downloadable documents to find the list.)

Article pointing out common sense

November 28 2007

The increased use of hospice by patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of unpredictable dementia has caused many to exceed Medicare reimbursement limits, the Times reported.

Originally, the Medicare hospice program was created for people with a terminal illness and who were certified by doctors as having less than six months to live. Many of the patients had cancer, which runs a somewhat predictable course once curative treatments are stopped, experts said.

An Alzheimer’s patient’s average length of stay is 86 days, while the average is 44 days for lung-cancer patients, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Complicating providers’ plight is a 1998 action by Congress that removed length-of-stay limits but kept an aggregate reimbursement cap in place. One federal health official, however, intimated that poor management might be more responsible for hospice financial troubles than insufficient government reimbursements.

November 29 2007

The average cost of a private room in a nursing home with a single resident rose to $209 a day, or $76,322 a year, according to a study commissioned by the New York Life Insurance Company’s Long-Term Care Division. Semi-private rooms, based on double occupancy, rose to an average of $185 dollars a day, or $67,554 a year, the study found.

Last month, a MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home and Assisted Living Costs revealed that the average cost of a private nursing home room jumped to $213 per day. The average cost of a semi-private room hit $189 daily, MetLife said. Alaska represents the highest cost area for private nursing home care, according to both studies.

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From Wall Street Journal Wed. 11/28/07 D1. Video included.

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