Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs)

This project tracked resident and facility factors associated with high risk of live discharges from nursing facilities.

People can be discharged from nursing homes for many reasons. Discharges may be a positive outcome and at an individual’s choice. In other cases, discharges may be at the direction of the facility and against the will of the resident. There are strict rules about when involuntary facility-initiated discharges (FIDs) are allowed.

Opioid use was very common among the long-term care (LTC) residents in our sample. Perhaps reflecting their post-acute rehabilitative needs, discharged residents were more likely to have opioid use prior to LTC admission and at the beginning of the LTC stay.

Newly released CMS skilled nursing facilities (SNF) Change of Ownership data (CHOW) data allows for a better understanding of how the nursing home ownership financial structures are changing. A total of 3,258 SNFs have been sold since 2016. Roughly 3.5% of skilled nursing facilities are sold in the US each year since then.

This report analyzes newly-released data from CMS that provides information on changes in ownership among hospitals and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), based on information reported to CMS through the Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS).

Prescriptions dispensed for antipsychotics in nursing homes and assisted living facilities increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with 20.8 thousand dispensed in 2020 compared to 20.5 thousand in 2019. This represents a 1.5% increase in total prescriptions since the beginning of the pandemic despite lower resident census levels in long-term care facilities (LTCFs).

This Policy Brief helps fill an important gap in our understanding of medication patterns in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) by comparing use and spending for prescription and over-the-counter drugs during skilled nursing facility (SNF) stays and related non-qualifying long-term care facility episodes.