$750 Million For Medicare Reimbursements To Nursing Homes
The long term care industry (nursing home industry) is high fiving each other because they successfully negotiated another $750 Million pay increase in 2015 from Medicare. This is the same industry that in the fiscal year 2012, Medicare paid $32.2 Billion (yes that is Billion with a capital B) for skilled nursing facility services.[1] According to McKnight, the finalized Medicare rate increase of an additional $750 Million next year was “welcome news” by Mark Peterson, the President and CEO of American Healthcare Association.
What does this mean? The nursing home industry is heavily lobbying CMS to receive Medicare funds and negotiated an increase of an additional $750 Million beyond what they already making, which in 2012 was over $32 Billion. This should be a call to action: that we demand our state agencies monitor and enforce regulatory violations against nursing homes for their deficient, substandard care. The lack of enforcement by our state agencies against these nursing homes allows the long term industry to continue to provide substandard care, which results in elder neglect and abuse.
At York Law Firm, we are dedicated to representing elders and dependent adults who have been injured, neglected or abused. If you or your loved one has been the victim of abuse at a skilled nursing facility, hospital or assisted living facility, please contact our team at York Law Firm at 916-643-2200 so that we can investigate your case.
[1] Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2012 CMS statistics, Table III.6, accessed at https://www.cms.gov/ResearchGenInfo/02_CMSStatistics.asp.