Category: Long Term Care and Nursing Homes
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Out-of-State Nursing Home Chains Continue to Plague Virginia – A New Solution
by James C. Sherlock Nursing home chains headquartered in New Jersey, New York, and Atlanta have, in the last decade, plagued Virginia with their operations here to a degree that should have proven intolerable to the Governor and the General Assembly. New Jersey-based Medical Facilities of America (MFA) is both the largest and the worst-performing…
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Some of Virginia’s Worst Nursing Homes are Being Sold
by James C. Sherlock One discerning group of investors in the real estate-with-nursing-home-tenants business appears to hire operating chain-management companies exclusively from those headquartered in the Lakewood, New Jersey, area. The chains compete, but are all run by the same small circle of acquaintances. That background is meaningful because five of Lakewood-based Medical Facilities of…
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Ask the Real Questions about Nursing Homes in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock This author is tired of hearing that the left has compassion for poor people. The left that runs Richmond just completed another session in which they refused to face our nursing home crisis. They claim to prioritize the concerns of minorities, but pretend that Medicaid long-term residential care is somehow…
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Table Stakes: Virginia Nursing Home Chains Selling to REITs
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes, when you are winning big in a table stakes poker game, it can be time to put some money in your pocket. That is part of the game many nursing home chains are playing these days. Everybody wins but the nursing facility residents, Medicare, and Medicaid. The enterprise architecture of…
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Evidence of Intent
by James C. Sherlock Evidence of intentional wrongdoing by specific nursing home chains operating in Virginia is hiding in plain sight. The huge gaps and consistent trends in each exhibit below cannot be attributed to happenstance. It reflects business models rigorously applied. The numbered exhibits draw entirely on a single Center for Medicare & Medicaid…
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The General Assembly is Looking for Experts
by James C. Sherlock This is yet another story of state-sanctioned corruption by elected politicians serving the interests of the nursing home industry. New players, same play. That industry, led this time by out-of-state chains, has once again found it cheaper to buy the votes and influence of senior members of the General Assembly with…
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Does Medicaid Pay Enough for Nursing Home Residents?
by James C. Sherlock A reader of the last post in this series asked an excellent question: “Is there such a thing as a highly rated facility that has a high number of Medicaid patients?” His premise was that perhaps Medicaid does not pay enough. In an attempt to answer, the author built a spreadsheet…
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Virginia Nursing Home Quality and the Public’s Right to Know – A New York Solution
by James C. Sherlock The author cannot help but note the service the Virginia Health Care Association (VHCA), the lobbyist for the nursing home industry, offers to Virginia consumers. It deserves recognition. A person looking for a nursing home for mom can visit the VHCA website to find a “quality care provider.” Someone living in…
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“The facility staff failed …”
by James C. Sherlock Either the title of this article or “the facility failed” is stock language used in every summary of a citation for a nursing home’s violation of federal regulation. It is the truth, but not the whole truth. Inspectors come to a nursing home in Virginia once every couple of years. The…
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Virginia Nursing Home Laws Avoid Chains and Subverted by Weak Sanctions
by James C. Sherlock Delegate Rodney Willet, D-Henrico, is trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. He has introduced HB 605 to amend § 32.1-127. (Effective January 1, 2026) Regulations. He added a new section B. 35 to establish staffing standards for Virginia nursing homes. Del. Willett is joined by many members of…
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Out-of-State Donors Push Nursing Home Campaign Contributions to New Heights
by James C. Sherlock “Organizing for Virginia Seniors” has jumped to number two on VPAP’s list of Top Political Donors in Virginia behind Dominion Energy. The funding for “Organizing for Virginia Seniors” comes from New York and New Jersey nursing home chains, about which this author has been less than complimentary. And then there…
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Is There a Doctor in the House?
Part 1: Medical Directors by James C. Sherlock The active presence of the medical director in a nursing home is vital to maintaining the quality of care. By overseeing medical practices, implementing care policies, ensuring compliance with professional standards, and, if required, butting heads with facility administrators and owners, the medical director plays a crucial…
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The Deadly Consequences of Non-Compliant Nursing Home Reporting
by James C. Sherlock Regulators and law enforcement agencies cannot oversee what they do not understand. They do not understand nursing home management structures, and thus, business models of chains whose facilities, due to the core role of understaffing in those models, routinely abuse and cause the untimely deaths of residents. Section 1124(c) of…
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Crime and Punishment in Virginia Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) inspectors regularly report instances of resident abuse, including battery, occasionally resulting in death. That has persisted for decades and appears undeterred by current enforcement efforts. The Code of Virginia (Code) is partially at fault. It makes it challenging for the state, its citizens, and local…
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Nursing Home Staffing – What Regulators Can See
by James C. Sherlock In the last episode of this series, the author wrote about what citizens should do to choose a nursing home. He made the case that a search should use Medicare Compare to make a list of facilities in the vicinity of your search area and then use the Staffing rating to…