How many skilled nursing facilities in the us

Generally speaking, individuals in nursing homes require ongoing care for at least one chronic condition. Most require some level of care with activities of daily living ADL , including:.

Most commonly, nursing home residents require care due to health or cognitive impairments that make living independently difficult. These impairments often include:. There are a lot of misconceptions about the general population of nursing home residents. While many residents do have chronic conditions and need assistance with ADL, there are many residents who are independent and largely healthy.

CMS reports:. If your loved one does have cognitive impairments, it is important to make sure that prospective nursing homes have the means and staff to properly supervise and care for them. Many people move into nursing homes immediately after a hospitalization. During these short-term stays, Medicare often covers the costs. However, if your loved one needs long-term care in assisted living or a nursing home, Medicare likely will not cover the cost.

This leaves many families surprised and unsure of how to pay for care. So how much does a nursing home cost? Of course, costs vary greatly depending on the location of the facility, the services needed, and quite honestly the quality. Across the U. The lowest daily averages in the U. So, how do people pay for nursing home care? Most people pay out of pocket for the majority of care expenses. Given the cost of care, it is easy to see how paying for a nursing home can dwindle even a healthy savings.

Many people turn to Medicaid once they can no longer cover the costs on their own. Turn on Animations. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Please turn on JavaScript and try again.

Contact Us. Page Banner. Page Content. These may include, but are not limited to, Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia such as memory care units , intellectual and developmental disabilities, and particular medical conditions e.

The majority of these residents are the "oldest old," or age 85 and older, female, and non-Hispanic white. See state estimates on resident characteristics. The breakdown of these full-time nursing and social work employees is below. State Fast Facts. Bureau of Labor Statistics. New Mexico. South Dakota. New York. In addition, the number of people age 65 and older in nursing homes decreased Another factor influencing occupancy levels has been the increase in short-term rehabilitative stays at SNFs.

In New York state, long-term stays hovered at around , between and , while very short stays, of 30 days or less, more than doubled from approximately 62, to , in the same time period. SNF bed use is measured by the occupancy rate, calculated as the number of resident days divided by the number of available bed days the number of beds x days in the year. The occupancy rate shows what percentage of the beds are filled at a facility over the course of the year.

Across the country, occupancy rates have been decreasing since the s see Figure 1 8 , meaning there are more beds than needed. When a SNF has a low occupancy rate, it is sitting on unused beds.

This becomes a problem because per diem rates, which are calculated as the total cost divided by the number of bed days, can include costs for those unused beds. Similarly, capital costs are usually based on either actual costs such as mortgage and real estate taxes or an independent assessment of the market value of the facility known as Fair Rental Value FRV ; Medicaid could therefore end up paying for a bed mortgage or the value of a bed facility, even though typically only 80 beds are used.

States have several policy levers they can employ to reduce unnecessary Medicaid spending that would otherwise be caused by low occupancy levels. This blog focuses on two such methods. Many states set minimum thresholds, or occupancy standards, for one or more of the cost centers such as direct care, operations, and capital costs used to set their SNF rates. See Figure 2. A handful of states, including Louisiana and Oregon, have run bed buyback programs to encourage facilities to surrender their licenses for unneeded beds and thus increase the occupancy rate in the state.

In Oregon, the state occupancy rate in was In , beds However, all except a bed SNF closed due to market or other conditions and not due to the bed reduction initiative.