“Warning comes with sharp rise in hospitals holding ownership links to post-acute care”

“Warning comes with sharp rise in hospitals holding ownership links to post-acute care,” by Emily Mongan, McKnight’s LTC News

“The percentage of hospitals with shared ownership or investor links to a post-acute care provider jumped from 25% in 2005 to nearly 50% in 2015, a new Health Affairs study shows. That sharp increase could have policy- and care-related implications, according to the study’s authors. . . . Their findings, published Tuesday, showed that hospitals with investor links to skilled nursing facilities increased from 10.7% in 2005 to 17.5% in 2015. The study’s results also found 61.8% of skilled nursing facilities had some sort of corporate investor in 2015 compared to 36% in 2055. In 2005 nearly 28% of skilled nursing facilities had a health company investor; that increased to 48.4% in 2015. The study also found that 48% of the country’s skilled nursing providers had a chain affiliation in 2015, compared to 21% in 2005.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):
Vertical integration in health and LTC as well as more SNFs in chains are big changes the consequences of which for LTC financing could be significant, unknowable, and unintended.

Warning comes with sharp rise in hospitals holding ownership links to post-acute care

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