The Indianapolis-based drugmaker said it will enroll about 2,400 residents and staff of nursing homes to test an antibody it is developing with a Canadian biotech. Nursing homes account for about 40% of U.S. deaths from COVID-19.
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The ringleader in one of the largest corporate-fraud cases in Indiana in recent years says his legal team at Barnes & Thornburg failed to disclose a “profound conflict of interest.
Read MoreThe median occupancy rate at skilled nursing facilities, historically around 90%, is forecasted to be 77% for the year. And most homes are losing money, with an expected median operating margin of negative 4.8%.
A Warsaw-based nursing home operator plans to terminate its operating leases at eight Indiana locations—including one in Indianapolis—affecting nearly 700 employees.
Former CEO James Burkhart pleaded guilty in January 2018 to a scheme in which vendors working for American Senior Communities inflated invoices and kicked back profits to Burkhart and other company officials.
The nursing home industry has lost more than 420,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic, reducing its workforce to the size it was 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the aging trend that the U.S. Census Bureau calls the “gray tsunami” looms ever closer.
Nursing homes reported a near-record of about 32,000 COVID-19 cases among residents in the week ending Jan. 9, an almost sevenfold increase from a month earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an effort to address ongoing staffing woes, industry groups are seeking to ease some training and regulatory requirements.
Chosen Consulting LLC, which does business as Chosen Healthcare, alleges its former chief financial officer defrauded the company through a scheme to get double paychecks for more than a year and that she also improperly sent more than a half-million dollars to her own construction company.
Some experts are calling for mandatory vaccinations at nursing homes, warning that unprotected staff members are endangering residents. Even residents who have been inoculated are vulnerable because many are elderly and frail, with weak immune systems.
The CDC conducted its investigation of delta variant outbreaks in elder care facilities in Colorado, but that state isn’t alone in seeing nursing home outbreaks as large shares of staff remain unvaccinated. Indiana has its own troubling incident.
The report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services found that nursing home deaths overall jumped by 169,291 from the previous year, before the coronavirus appeared.
Advocates for nursing home residents say they worry a new Indiana law expanding COVID-19 liability protections for health care providers will effectively block many lawsuits over neglect and substandard treatment that weren’t caused by the pandemic.
The government guidance comes as coronavirus cases and deaths among nursing home residents have plummeted in recent weeks at the same time that vaccination accelerated.
The past year has been awful for Carmel-based Invesque, as COVID-19 hurt the full gamut of its health care real estate portfolio, from nursing homes and office buildings to memory-care and assisted-living centers.
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities account for about 1% of the U.S. population, but represent 40% of COVID-19 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Those cleared included homes with mounting coronavirus outbreaks before or during the inspections, as well as those that saw cases and deaths spiral upward after inspectors reported no violations had been found, in some cases multiple times.
The state on Wednesday announced a five-part plan that also includes sending 2 million N-95 masks and 400,000 face shields to nursing homes, which have been particularly hard hit by the virus.
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living released a report Monday that said the United States is beginning to see a third spike of new COVID cases in nursing homes due to the increased community spread among the general population.
Dashboard users will be able to search specific long-term care facilities to see reported cases and deaths.
The weekly cost of testing employees could range from more than $19,000 to nearly $38,000, according to estimates. But the Trump administration said nursing homes can cover the cost of ongoing testing from a $5 billion pot provided by Congress, and allocated to the facilities by the White House.
The numbers represent the first official national accounting of fatalities in the 15,000 nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. The tally, however, is incomplete.
