Right in line with what you are saying. The regulatory atmosphere has changed.
U.S. House Panel Approves Nursing Home Protection Legislation
Washington, March 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House subcommittee on Medicaid issues approved legislation that prevents nursing homes such as Vencor Inc. from evicting patients covered by the government health insurance program.
The legislation, spurred by last year's attempts by Louisville, Kentucky-based Vencor to evict Medicaid patients, is expected by industry analysts to become law. It is supported by the Clinton administration and nursing homes, including Vencor. The full Senate committee in charge of Medicaid issues is scheduled to take up the legislation on Thursday.
The measure would still be subject to a vote in both houses of Congress before going to the White House for the president's signature.
Nursing homes that decide to quit taking new Medicaid patients would be barred by the legislation from transferring or evicting Medicaid patients they already have. Nursing homes also would be required to tell potential new residents that they don't cover Medicaid.
Nursing homes complain that Medicaid, which accounts for almost 50 percent of industry revenue, underpays them while reimbursement from private-paying patients and by government Medicare coverage for the elderly is higher.
Industry lobbyists and analysts say the Vencor legislation is unlikely to hurt the industry. They say Vencor's efforts to evict Medicaid patients was unusual. Still, that argument was weakened at a congressional hearing last month in which it was revealed that another nursing home had recently been accused of dumping Medicaid patients. The nursing home, in Brandon, Florida, is owned by Owings Mills, Maryland-based Integrated Health Services Inc.
Integrated Executive Vice President Marc Levin would not comment on the accusation today.
Last year, Vencor tried to evict some Medicaid patients from its nursing homes to make room for patients with higher paying forms of health coverage. The company reversed the policy after it caused a public outcry that included a state investigation of a Vencor nursing home in Tampa that tried to evict 50 Medicaid patients.
Shares in Vencor, which runs about 350 hospitals and nursing homes, were unchanged at 1 13/16 . Vencor's problems with Medicaid, combined with cuts in nursing home payments by the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly and a federal investigation into its billing practices, have helped drive its shares down from a 52-week high of 12 7/8 last May. Integrated shares rose 1/16 to 6 1/16.
17:09:06 03/02/1999
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