Nursing Homes and Medicare Cuts

Nursing homes struggle and face an uncertain future due to Medicare cuts. The federal government reported that Medicare spent an estimated $12 billions between 2005 to 2009. Generally, the purpose of nursing homes is to support and comfort elderly patients, not to heal them. Under the current Medicare program, it will cover the costs of hospice care if the patient is terminally ill, along with having six months or less to live.

Medicare will cut it’s budget by $4 billion

Due to staggering costs for hospice and nursing care, Medicare will drastically cut the budget by $4 billion, making it financially difficult for nursing homes across the U.S. to provide adequate health care for their patients. The Medicare cuts have an impact on “post-acute care,” which is reimbursement fees for seniors who reside at trained nursing facilities.

Layoff medical staff due to Medicare cuts

As a result, elderly or incapacitated patients could see the quality of their nursing care deteriorate since most nursing homes would have to layoff their medical staff due to Medicare cuts. Worse, some facilities may reject patients who have complicated medical needs since it wouldn’t be cost-effective to treat a labor intensive patient.

Medicare will not cover the costs?

Medical services are critical for seniors who have been hospitalized and need rehabilitative services before they go back to their homes; nevertheless, Medicare will not cover the costs of long-term nursing visits. During the month of July, CMS, which is the Centers for Medicare, completed the nursing home action, and this program will be in effect on October 1, 2011. Consequently, a handful of publicly traded nursing home businesses plunged instantly. Also, business insiders displayed strong protest against the Medicare cuts since they would have to struggle and make financial cuts.