About half of responding assisted living facilities and most nursing homes have a generator to keep critical electricity flowing, a new report found. A survey conducted by the Texas Health and Human Service Commission released in late August found that about 47% of responding assisted living facilities and 99% of nursing homes said they had a generator, a piece of information that previously was unknown.
Take the warning, Pennsylvania and New York. Once workers in your states learn about a new social program that will take money from their paychecks for a benefit many of them will never receive, they won’t be fond of it. And at least be honest that a new payroll tax will be a state funding stream, not a reliable benefit for workers. The penalty for being a worker, especially for low-income workers, is substantial. Pennsylvania and New York residents might not learn about the false promises and shortcomings of long-term-care laws being considered by their lawmakers before it is too late. An industry source tells me workers in those states seem to be just as in the dark as Washingtonians were about their long-term-care law. In July 2023, W-2 workers here will begin paying the state another payroll tax. This one will be 58 cents for every $100 earned.
A federal database intended to disclose nursing home ownership has spotty and incomplete information that can obscure whether a private equity firm controls a facility, a new report from Public Citizen finds. Why it matters: A surge of private equity investment in the sector has coincided with worse health outcomes, studies show. And the pandemic put a spotlight on the quality of care after more than 200,000 long-term care facility residents and staff succumbed to COVID-19.
About 700 nursing home nurses, health aides and support staff walked off the jobs Friday morning as negotiation talks over unfair labor practices between union and provider representatives failed to settle a dispute.
The strike impacts 14 nursing homes across the state.
In an effort to reorganize, the New York Department of Health (NYDOH) has formed a new Office of Aging & Long Term Care (OALTC), which would oversee long term care and senior living facilities in New York. The OALTC will be led by Adam Herbst, Deputy Commissioner on Aging & Long Term Care. The OALTC will be responsible for long term care functions related to licensure, surveys, and data collection and will develop policies and procedures to meet the needs of older New Yorkers and others who require long term care. The OALTC will work collaboratively with the Office of Health Insurance Programs, the Office of Primary Care and Health Systems Management, and the New York State Office for the Aging. The OALTC will also help develop and execute New York’s Master Plan for Aging (called for in Governor Hochul’s executive budget) to improve the quality of long term care and the recruitment, retention, and training of long term care workers.
I don’t know why Medicare sends us this stuff. Maybe because we disguised ourselves as old people at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic/hysteria to get our shots before anyone else. Since then, they’ve treated us like we should be grateful to know about all things old. One Medicare email from earlier this month did look like it might be helpful if we ever did get old. It was about nursing homes in our area and how they were ranked. Good stuff. Helpful stuff. It would have helped when we were looking for a nursing home for a close relative who lived with us for five years and needed specialized care. I know I mentioned this before, but we thought we had the problem solved when we planned to leave the relative at the McDonald’s in Emmitsburg — with a week’s supply of meds. A friend convinced us that it was probably illegal. After considerable searching and researching, we settled on Homewood at Crumland Farms as a better option. We also lucked out, since they had an opening.