Shares of Emeritus fell 15 percent today. The shares dropped from $1.56 to $8.82, their lowest level in four years. Emeritus is a nationwide provider of assisted senior housing also reported a third-quarter loss of $23.1 million.

The Seattle company, one of the largest in its field, wasn’t the only senior housing company battered by the market. Leading competitors Sunrise Senior Living and Brookdale Senior Living fell 21 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

Emeritus’ third-quarter revenue of $193 million was up from $187 million in the second quarter, while its net loss shrank from the second-quarter loss of $25.2 million.

Brookdale Senior Living Inc. shares lost more than a third of their value Thursday, plunging for a second-straight day in the wake of weak third-quarter results.

Stock in the nation’s largest provider of senior-care facilities fell $3.43, or 36.5 percent, to close at $5.96, after sinking as low as $5.89, the lowest level in Brookdale’s three years as a publicly traded company.

On Wednesday, the stock lost 15.5 percent, to finish at $9.39.Analysts raised questions about the company’s balance sheet and cost pressures and suggested its difficulties are likely to continue into 2009.

source: associated press

The $700 billion bailout plan signed by the president last week is likely to have a positive effect on long-term care housing, according to an expert from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.

“The bailout should ease the credit crunch which is currently playing havoc with both the debt and equity markets that are so essential to tax credits,” affordable housing expert Nancy Libson from AAHSA, told McKnight’s.

“Many deals already in the works to build or renovate senior housing are looking for new equity investors,” she said. “Equity investors, if they stay in deals, are adjusting (reducing) their investments. When debt financing is necessary, interest rates are rising, making deals infeasible. The bill should provide relief in the debt and equity markets, providing a more stable financial system for this vital service for seniors.”

The legislation, which drew both praise and scorn from members of Congress, passed through the House after two weeks of heated debate and more than one failed vote. Finally, 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans gave their approval. The president signed it on Friday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had hoped at least 100 Republicans would vote for the measure in order to portray the bailout as being truly bipartisan

The report, which was released this week, found that more than 90% of the nation’s nursing homes were cited for federal violations last year. While Georgia state officials say they agree with HHS’ assessment, they argue that the numbers look worse than they really are. A total 88% of Georgia’s nursing homes were cited, according to HHS. But speaking to Atlanta’s public radio station WABE 90.1 FM, a Georgia state health official said that most of those infractions were for minor offenses, like housekeeping and maintenance issues, or food issues.

Idaho health officials share much the same view of the HHS report. All of Idaho’s homes received a citation, according to the report. A CBS affiliate in Boise spoke to one Idaho health official who said that his state reports even the tiniest infractions, unlike other states. He notes that, while an average of 17% of nursing homes nationwide were cited for deficiencies that caused harm or danger to residents, that number was only 3% in Idaho.

Rhode Island fared much better than some other states, the report found. Some 76% of its nursing homes were cited for an infraction. And the average number of citations per home was 2.5, far lower than any other state in the union.

“It was gratifying to see that our state did better than anyone else with respect to the number and percentage of deficiencies,” Virginia Burke, president of the Rhode Island Health Care Association told McKnight’s.

But Burke, like her counterparts in other states, also doesn’t feel the survey process is entirely fair. It’s not a very good stand-alone measure of quality care, and a lot of it is arbitrary, she says.

“You have to look at a number of quality measures before you can make a broad statement about the quality of care in one state versus another,” Burke said.

More than 90 percent of nursing homes were cited for violations of U.S. health and safety standards last year, and for-profit homes were more likely to have problems than other types of nursing homes, federal investigators say in a report issued on Monday.

About 17 percent of nursing homes had deficiencies that caused “actual harm or immediate jeopardy” to patients, said the report, by Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Problems included infected bedsores, medication mix-ups, poor nutrition and abuse and neglect of patients.

Inspectors received 37,150 complaints about conditions in nursing homes last year, and they substantiated 39 percent of them, the report said. About one-fifth of the complaints verified by federal and state authorities involved the abuse or neglect of patients.

About two-thirds of nursing homes are owned by for-profit companies, while 27 percent are owned by nonprofit organizations and 6 percent by government entities, the report said.

Source: International Resource Report

The average skilled nursing occupancy rate held steady, while rates for assisted living and independent living fell noticeably. That is according to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing and Care Industry’s Market Area Profiles (NIC MAP) statistics released Thursday. Skilled nursing occupancy held at 90.1% for the second quarter of 2008, compared with 90.7% for the first quarter of 2007.

It was recently annoced that The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, one of the nation’s largest healthcare foundations, plans to award $2.3 million in grants for research to improve the quality of nursing care in America. Grants of up to $300,000 will be given to eight research projects as part of the foundation’s Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, a program designed to produce and collect information on how nurses contribute to the quality of care patients receive.

The foundation, which recently made the announcement, hopes to analyze how nurses contribute to high quality patient care among multiple providers and across many care settings, including long-term care.

Nurses comprise more than half of the nation’s caregivers, but little research exists showing the connection between their efforts and improved quality of care for patients, according to the foundation This round of grants, which will be rolled out over the next two years, is the third stage and final stage of the initiative, which his so far given $19 million for nursing research.

More information is available at www.rwjf.org.

The Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act of 2008 is the bill that would eliminate arbitration agreements as a requirement for admission into a nursing home and it is one step closer to becoming a law. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill last Thursday.

Since its introduction in April of this year, the legislation has started a heated debate between lawmakers and consumer advocates on one side and nursing-home groups on the other. As recently as last Wednesday, healthcare lobbyists were sending letters to high-ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in an effort to defeat the bill. Many in the long-term care industry argue that eliminating mandatory arbitration agreements will cause facilities to focus resources more on legal battles than on improving quality of care.The Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act will not entirely do away with arbitration agreements,  lawmakers note. Rather, it will make them a voluntary agreement. Before it can become law, the bill must be debated on the Senate floor. No debate is currently scheduled.

Two years after Kelly “Buck” Whitesides disappeared from Unique Living, an assisted living facility he called home for only a week another resident is missing.Eight days after he was reported missing, Whitesides, 59, a diabetic with a history of strokes and heart problems, was found dead less than 300 yards from the facility.

History appeared to be repeating itself Wednesday when another Unique Living resident vanished.Officials set up shop in the parking lot of Burns High School - less than two miles from the assisted living facility - Wednesday evening and canvassed the 1.7 mile stretch between the two buildings.It was in there, according to Cleveland County Assistant Fire Marshal Perry Davis, that they hoped to find Tang Mouy, 46.

With a N.C. Highway Patrol helicopter flying overhead, Lawndale and Fallston firemen, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and K-9 division and the fire marshal’s office took part in the search for the native of Cambodia.

According to the missing person’s report, Mouy was last seen around 7:15 a.m. Wednesday after refusing to take her medication. A short time later, the report read, a teacher at Burns High called and asked if they were missing an Asian resident. A staff member was sent to the student parking lot, where Mouy was last seen, but could not find her.

“Mr. (Gregory) Oates (supervisor at Unique Living) stated that Ms. Mouy was capable of living a normal life,” read the report by Deputy J.M. Bradley. “He stated she did have an illness but managed it well.”

The report read that Oates expected Mouy to return on her own. But, 12 hours after she was reported missing, the search continued.

Calls were made Wednesday to the facility but there was no answer.

source:gastsongazzette.com

Nursing homes are increasingly evicting residents to help their bottom lines,according to an analysis in The Wall Street Journal. The Journal admits there is no agency tracking nursing home evictions in the U.S.

Complaints of improper evictions have doubled over the last decade to 8,500 in 2006. Those at greatest risk of being kicked out depend on Medicaid, according to the Journal, which reimburses nursing homes at roughly half the rate of Medicare. In lieu of these low-income residents, homes are opting for short-term residents whose visits are fully paid by Medicare for up to 100 days, the newspaper found. The nursing home industry, in responding to the allegations, said evictions are not common and when they occur, they happen for legitimate reasons, the newspaper reported.

Federal law requires a home give a resident at least 30 days notice before evicting him or her, and allows for only six possible reasons for eviction: they are healthy enough to return home; they require care not offered at the nursing home; they risk the health of other residents or staff; they endanger the safety of other residents or staff; they do not pay their bills; or the nursing home closes. The Journal asserts that, in many states, up to one in seven evictions does not meet those criteria.

To read the Wall Street Journal Story, visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121806702698918693.html.