Nursing Home Infections Are Increasing…Surprise (Not!)

Here’s an October 9, 2014 article from McKnight’s LTC News describing recently published findings that show across the board infection rates in nursing homes have surged during the past five years. 

Quoting from the article, “The prevalence of viral hepatitis in nursing homes increased 48% between 2006 and 2010, the investigators determined. MDRO prevalence increased by 18% and pneumonia by 11%. The rates of urinary tract infections, septicemia and wound infections also rose.”

Here are several additional blogs I’ve done about Medicaid’s shortcomings. Because most long-term patients in nursing homes are on Medicaid (a form of Welfare), and because Medicaid’s reimbursement to nursing homes is actually less than the cost of caring for such patients, many nursing homes are unprofitable. We all agree that the most important employees in nursing homes are the custodial caregivers. These are the lowest paid people on the economic totem pole. Counter-intuitively, these critical frontline caregivers are often the first place nursing homes fire to cut expenses.

My opinion is that because of inadequate care in many Medicaid-funded nursing homes, corners are cut. Quality of care suffers. Sad outcomes then occur. This is what is causing the rapid rise of nursing home infections. It is not hard to connect the dots on this one.

Many nursing home patients end up in such facilities because they do not have money to access better care. People who own long-term care insurance (LTCi) are far less likely to wind up in Medicaid-funded nursing homes. They are far more likely to end up in preferable, far nicer assisted-living facilities.