Category: Medicaid
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Virginia’s Worst Nursing Home Chains – Part Six – A Picture of Deceit
by James C. Sherlock “This nursing home information is confusing, mindbending, and scary. Please draw us a picture to clarify.” Well, readers are right. It is all three of those things. It is meant to be so by some people in the system. Virginia has some excellent nursing homes and chains, but those are not…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Homes – Part Five – Chain Corporate Structures and the Undoing of the Regulatory Structure
by James C. Sherlock Today, we will examine a big factor in why nursing home regulation fails. It is doomed in part by the organizational structures of chains that mask a deadly lack of corporate ethics. Government regulators not only do not stop it, but are currently helpless to do so for the simplest of…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Homes – Part Four – Recommendations For 2026 Legislation
by James C. Sherlock This series is being constructed specifically to support legislation in the 2026 General Assembly. To reiterate the legislative recommendations from Part 3: Recommended legislation Consumer protection. Right now, citizens in Virginia Beach and in other communities have no defense against poor and badly staffed nursing homes that charge too much. The…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Home Choices Part 3 – Nursing Home Costs and Alternatives
by James C. Sherlock Nursing home costs and payments are complex subjects not often explained. Patients need a place for round-the-clock skilled nursing care to continue to heal from surgeries after hospital discharge. For some, their care is too complex to get at home, or their homes are not suitable for such care. They need…
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Virginians’ Dreadful Nursing Home Dilemmas Part Two – Virginia Beach
by James C. Sherlock This article will explore a single geographic area, Virginia Beach, to focus on what nursing home choices mean in practice to the citizenry of Virginia’s largest city. The quality of the nursing home inventory in Virginia Beach is illustrative of that of all of south Hampton Roads and much of…
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Not Sweet
by James C. Sherlock I have written here for years about Virginia’s worst nursing homes and the inevitable abuse that comes from ritual understaffing as a business model. The activities of the nursing home operating companies are funded by Medicare and Medicaid and overseen by federal and state health authorities. To make short a very…
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Can Virginia Save $2.6 Billion in Medicaid Spending Through One Simple Fix?
Brad Hart is co-owner of Forest Park Pharmacy, an independent pharmacy. He has a few things to say about Medicaid spending in Virginia. Independent pharmacies have a big stake in state Medicaid policies, but the dude is from Fort Worth, Texas! Click here to listen. Hart’s commentary is based on a report by Arlington-based Strategic…
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Another Power Struggle Between Youngkin and General Assembly
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Another dispute between Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the General Assembly, one that has faint echoes of one occurring north of the Potomac, has taken on a larger life with parties turning to the Virginia Supreme Court. Before going into the details, some background would be helpful. The Virginia Constitution provides, “The Governor shall…
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Princess Anne and the Blob
by James C. Sherlock I posted earlier today about the cutoff of Princess Anne Health and Rehabilitation Center (Princess Anne) in Virginia Beach from Medicare and Medicaid participation. Federal and state officials had as evidence very recent smoking guns from a February 2025 complaint inspection and a June 2025 revisit by the VDH Office…
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One Down
by James C. Sherlock For the first time ever, a Virginia nursing home, Princess Anne Health and Rehabilitation Center (Princess Anne) in Virginia Beach, has been evicted from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Before I get to it, I want to acknowledge and thank those who have been working to improve nursing facilities in…
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A Solution for Effective Nursing Home Oversight
Cutting the Gordian Knot by James C. Sherlock An overarching fact often overlooked is that the for-profit nursing home industry is the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Few for-profit facilities and chains existed before the passage of those programs in 1965. Yet it is for-profit systems that overwhelmingly commit abuses. Government oversight has proven…
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Let’s Run the Medicaid Numbers Before Hitting the Panic Button
by James A. Bacon Aubrey Layne was a great public servant in Richmond before he moved back to Norfolk to take a job as chief administrative officer of Sentara Health. He did a superior job as Secretary of Transportation under Gov. Terry McAuliffe and then as Secretary of Finance under Gov. Ralph Northam. He earned…
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Youngkin Being Careful On His Way Out
by Dick Hall-Sizemore With one foot out of the Virginia Governor’s Executive Mansion and both eyes on the White House, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is being careful not to cross Donald Trump. In recent comments he has praised Trump actions and downplayed or publicly ignored any negative effects on the Commonwealth of recent Trump initiatives. Tax and…
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Major Hit to Virginia Budget Looming in Congress
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There are many provisions of the reconciliation bill now being considered by the U.S. Senate that would affect Virginia. One issue that would have a great impact is the proposed crackdown on health-related taxes or assessments used by states. The federal Medicaid statutes authorize states to levy taxes, or assessments as they…
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Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Want to know more about the latest Medicaid budget controversy? You’ll learn more sitting in your back yard and listening to the crickets. by James A. Bacon Today we read in the Virginia Mercury the alarming headline that Governor Glenn Youngkin and other Republican governors have signed a letter supporting a congressional budget bill “that…