SNF statistics for 1999 are in.There were surprises in last year's numbers THE NURSING HOME STATISTTCAL YEAR-book, 1999 is off the presses and the report contains some surprising data. Published by AAHSA AAHSA American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (formerly American Association of Homes for the Aging, AAHA) , the yearbook is an annual collection of nursing home statistics. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the report, the prospective payment system (PPS (Packets Per Second) The measurement of activity in a local area network (LAN). In LANs such as Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI, as well as the Internet, data is broken up and transmitted in packets (frames), each with a source and destination address. ) has lowered the percentage of nursing home residents who receive Medicare to 8.7 percent in 1999, down from 9.4 percent in 1998. This is the first time this has happened in recent history. Another first is the decline in total number of beds certified by Medicare and Medicaid Medicare and Medicaid U.S. government programs in effect since 1966. Medicare covers most people 65 or older and those with long-term disabilities. Part A, a hospital insurance plan, also pays for home health visits and hospice care. . One explanation for this is the total number of nursing home beds has declined. A more ominous reason is that current reimbursement rates are so low some nursing homes can't afford to provide care so they are forced to reduce the number of certified beds in their facility. AAHSA president Len Fishman notes, "These numbers underscore the danger to Medicare beneficiaries of losing access to quality nursing home care if we under-fund our system of nursing home care." Other statistics this newest update reports include the fact that not-for-profit homes had fewer deficiencies than for-profit homes. Furthermore, there were 175 fewer such homes in 1999, the occupancy rate Noun 1. occupancy rate - the percentage of all rental units (as in hotels) are occupied or rented at a given time pct, per centum, percent, percentage - a proportion in relation to a whole (which is usually the amount per hundred) has been fairly constant, and among new residents 71 percent need help with four ADLs and 47 percent need help with all five ADLs. |
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