The Biden administration is considering a requirement that the nation’s 15,500 nursing homes spend most of their payments from Medicaid on direct care for residents and limit the amount that is used for operations, maintenance, and capital improvements or diverted to profits.
If adopted, it would be the first time the federal government insists that nursing homes devote the majority of Medicaid dollars to caring for residents.
The strategy, which has not yet been formally proposed, is among several steps officials are considering after the COVID-19 pandemic hit vulnerable nursing home residents especially hard. During the first 12 months of the pandemic, at least 34% of the people killed by the virus lived in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities even though residents of those facilities make up fewer than 1% of the U.S. population.
