Charlene Harrington – Susan Jaffe

“The health plan can determine how long someone is in a nursing home typically without laying eyes on the person.”

By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | October 4, 2022 | This KHN story also ran on

Amy Loomis (left) and Paula Christopherson (photo by Charles Christopherson)

After 11 days in a St. Paul, Minnesota, skilled nursing facility recuperating from a fall, Paula Christopherson, 97, was told by her insurer that she should return home.

“This seems unethical,” said daughter Amy Loomis, who feared what would happen if the Medicare Advantage plan, run by UnitedHealthcare, ended coverage for her mother’s nursing home care. The facility gave Christopherson a choice: pay several thousand dollars to stay, appeal the company’s decision, or go home.

But instead of being relieved, Christopherson and her daughter were worried because her medical team said she wasn’t well enough to leave.

Health care providers, nursing home representatives, and advocates for residents say Medicare Advantage plans are increasingly ending members’ coverage for nursing home and rehabilitation services before patients are healthy enough to go home. [Full story in and Fortune, Kaiser Health News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Yahoo News]

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“If they choose to rely on public dollars to deliver care, they take on a greater responsibility,” says New York Assemblyman Ron Kim. “It’s not like running a hotel.”

By Susan Jaffe | KAISER HEALTH NEWS | October 25, 2021 | This story also ran on

Nursing homes receive billions of taxpayers’ dollars every year to care for chronically ill frail elders, but until now, there was no guarantee that’s how the money would be spent.

Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York are taking unprecedented steps to ensure they get what they pay for, after the devastating impact of covid-19 exposed problems with staffing and infection control in nursing homes. The states have set requirements for how much nursing homes must spend on residents’ direct care and imposed limits on what they can spend elsewhere, including administrative expenses, executive salaries and advertising and even how much they can pocket as profit. …With this strategy, advocates believe, residents won’t be shortchanged on care, and violations of federal quality standards should decrease because money will be required to be spent on residents’ needs. At least that’s the theory. [Continued on Kaiser Health News, Fortune, NBC News, Yahoo Finance, and Chicago Sun-Times]…

Tag: Charlene Harrington

Nursing Home Surprise: Advantage Plans May Shorten Stays to Less Time Than Medicare Covers