Pittsburgh-Post Gazette Editorial: "A Tipping Point" for Private Equity Firms in Nursing Homes

Recently, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's online publication carried an editorial on a very hot topic, the impact of private equity investment in nursing homes.  The opening paragraph sets the stage for the argument:

The long-term mismanagement of nursing homes by private equity firms has reached a tipping point, resulting in over 20 bankruptcy filings in local elder care facilities in just a few weeks. It’s only the beginning of turmoil for nursing homes run by private equity, and the terrible results should be a lesson guiding future oversight.

As the article explains, while there are a host of bankruptcies in the Pittsburg area, the problem is not "just" a local issue.  Further, the editorial tracks a corporate strategy designed to separate the operational side of the business from the more lucrative "management fee" side of the business, observing: 

Private equity firms extract money from nursing homes in a process called a “sale-leaseback,” or selling the land out from under the facilities for lump payments. Nursing homes are suddenly forced to pay rent or “management fees” to occupy facilities they once owned. This is the same process, in a much less sensitive business, that resulted in the bankruptcy of the Red Lobster restaurant chain.

I once tried to explain to a financial advisor that I wanted nothing to do with investments by private equity into for-profit health care, and especially into nursing home care, as I personally could see no easy way for profit-seeking to create better quality of care.  Did they listen?  It is hard to know.  But, as the editorial also points out, new federal Medicare/Medicaid rules now seek to compel facilities to "disclose their ownership." 

The editorial concludes with especially strong wording, expressing hope that disclosure rules will help to "shift incentives against vulture capitalists, and toward operators that put their patients, not profits, first."  

For more read,  Pittsburgh Post Gazette Editorial, "Private Equity and Nursing Homes are a Match Made in Hell."