Literature Review

Senior health, home health & hospice stocks Q2 highlights StockStory; by Kayode Omotosho; 9/10/25 ... Looking ahead, the industry is positioned for tailwinds from an aging population, increasing chronic disease prevalence, and a growing preference for personalized in-home care. Advancements in remote monitoring and telehealth are expected to enhance efficiency and care delivery. However, headwinds such as labor shortages, wage inflation, and regulatory uncertainty around reimbursement could pose challenges. Investments in digitization and technology-driven care will be critical for long-term success. The 7 senior health, home health & hospice stocks we track reported a mixed Q2. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 2%.

Lights, camera, act up! Residents get royal treatment during photo sessions McKnights Long-Term Care News, The Brighter Side; by Foster Stubbs; 9/2/25The Village at Incarnate Word in San Antonio is home to approximately 275 older adults, including over 50 retired religious sisters. Some of them have recently found a new calling: modeling. Terri Landez, the community’s director of communications, had seen a news story about the work of Pop of Colors Images and struck up an Instagram friendship with the organization. ... Once they got the go-ahead, Pop of Colors photographers Megan Bowling and Jessica Rodriguez-Green turned the facility’s memory care floor into a photography studio, complete with a variety of royalty-themed props and outfits. Editor's Note: Do you need a smile? This will bring it! Enjoy and share. 

Nursing homes can disrupt ‘rehabbed to death’ cycle with PDPM-based palliative care Skilled Nursing News; by Kristin Carroll; 9/7/25 ... Skilled nursing facilities can leverage the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) to provide more palliative care to people near the end of life, helping to drive value-based care goals while improving the patient experience. However, much more needs to be done on the policy level to disrupt the current status quo, in which people commonly go through several care transitions near the end of life, driving up costs across the health care system while patients receive services that are not aligned with their own goals. Enabling concurrent SNF and hospice care is one change that could lead to improvement. These are assertions in the recent article “Rehab and Death: Improving End-Of-Life Care for Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility Beneficiaries,” published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The hidden crisis in serious illness care and how we fix itMedCityNews; by Dr. Mihir Kamdar; 9/7/25 Every year, millions of Americans with serious illnesses find themselves caught in a dangerous limbo: not sick enough to qualify for hospice, but far too ill to be served by our traditional healthcare system. The result is care that’s expensive, fragmented, and often traumatic. These patients are shuffled between a revolving door of emergency rooms and ICUs, enduring a cascade of aggressive interventions that don’t match their goals or improve their quality of life. This approach not only undermines quality, it drives healthcare spending through the roof, particularly in the last year of life. This is the hidden crisis in serious illness care. And it’s getting worse. At the root of the problem is what many in the field call the “hospice cliff.” ...

Understanding trauma in the context of direct care work in nursing homesJournal of Applied Gerontology; by Alfred Boakye, Jennifer Craft Morgan, Candace L. Kemp, Antonius D. Skipper; 8/25Direct care workers (DCWs) experience job quality challenges such as heavy workload, low pay, and few benefits. Layered risks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism have impacted DCWs, made them more vulnerable, and increased turnover and the precarity of the long-term care system and residents’ care. Findings suggest that DCWs are often crippled with challenges stemming from the impact of COVID-19, work-related factors, and personal factors. Understanding the intersection of trauma provides a detailed contextual description of care work, which is important for developing practical coping strategies, either at the personal or organizational levels, and developing more refined trauma-informed initiatives to build resilience and support DCWs.

PruittHealth strengthens senior care with new acquisition Investors Hangout; by Dylan Bailey; 8/28/25 PruittHealth ... has revealed its acquisition of The Lodge of Warner Robins. This strategic move marks the third skilled nursing center acquired from Debbie Meade and her family-run organization, Health Management. ... The acquisition allows patients access to a comprehensive Continuum of Care that encompasses ... hospice and palliative care, pharmacy, therapy services, a Medicare Advantage Plan, PruittHealth Premier, and community-based services for qualified Medicaid recipients through PruittHealth Home First.

Advocate Health investing $3B across rural footprint: 8 things to know Becker's Hospital Review; by Alan Condon; 8/15/25 Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health is investing more than $3 billion across its rural operations to preserve care access, expand services and build a sustainable pipeline of providers for the future. The investment comes at a time when nearly half of rural hospitals are operating at a loss and 800 are at risk of closure, according to an analysis by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Twenty-one of Advocate Health’s nearly 70 hospitals are located in rural counties across six states, along with more than 320 rural clinics and a network of mobile and virtual programs [including hospice care]. 

Medicaid payments and racial and ethnic disparities in Alzheimer disease special care unitsThe Journal of the American Medical Association - JAMA Network Open; by Huiwen Xu, PhD, Shuang Li, PhD, John R. Bowblis, PhD, Monique R. Pappadis, PhD, Yong-Fang Kuo, PhD; James S. Goodwin, MD; 8/4/25 In this cohort study of 13, 229 nursing homes, those with higher proportions of Black or Hispanic residents were less likely to have Alzheimer disease special care units. The disparities among nursing homes serving high proportions of Black residents, however, narrowed and even disappeared in states with higher Medicaid payment-to-cost ratios. ... This study suggests that more generous Medicaid payments may be associated with improved availability of specialized dementia care in nursing homes that serve primarily marginalized Black residents.

Blindsided: Some nursing homes across the country aggressively pursue friends and relatives for a loved one’s unpaid bill 14 News; by Jill Riepenhoff and Chris Nakamoto; 8/11/25 Toni Cook opened the letter from her mother’s nursing home and cried in horror. Lynn Marie Witt dropped to her knees and sobbed when she read the letter from her mother’s nursing home. Both women — stiff and grief-stricken over the loss of their beloved mothers — learned from those letters that the nursing homes intended to collect their mothers’ unpaid debts from them. Neither had any financial control over their mother’s bank accounts or assets after their deaths, court records say. They simply were loving daughters who signed paperwork to have their mothers admitted to a nursing home.

Amazon documentary exposes 'neglect and pain' in many nursing homes. It's only going to get worse. Morningstar; by Jessica Hall; 8/9/25  Susie Singer Carter's mom, Norma Pecora, suffered from Alzheimer's disease for 16 years and spent the last five years of her life in a nursing home. She died at age 89 after enduring sepsis, urinary-tract infections, bed sores and dehydration at a five-star facility in Los Angeles. ... In a new three-part documentary streaming on Amazon Prime (AMZN) called "No Country for Old People: A Nursing Home Expose," Carter walks viewers through her mom's early life, including her time as a singer for Capitol Records, as well as her final months - when she suffered from infections and other complications that required emergency hospitalizations while being cared for at a nursing home. 

Bipartisan bill offers ‘meaningful’ immigration reform that could help address senior living workforce needs, leaders say McKnights Senior Living; by Kimberly Bonvissuto; 7/1/25 A bipartisan immigration reform bill proposing a pathway to legal resident status for certain undocumented immigrants — including direct care workers — is earning the support of the senior living and care industry. The recently re-introduced Dignity Act of 2025 “offers the solution to our immigration crisis: secure the border, stop illegal immigration and provide an earned opportunity for long-term immigrants to stay here and work,” sponsor Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) had said in introducing the bill. [Its co-sponsor is] Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX).

Financial performance of rural and urban nursing homes: A comparative analysisThe Journal of Rural Health; by Gregory N. Orewa, Rohit Pradhan, Akbar Ghiasi, Shivani Gupta, Robert Weech-Maldonado; 7/25The financial sustainability of nursing homes is increasingly critical as the aging US population continues to grow. Rural facilities often encounter more significant economic challenges than urban counterparts. This study investigates the disparities in financial performance between rural and urban nursing homes in the United States, emphasizing the influence of organizational and environmental factors. A comprehensive understanding of these differences is necessary for the implementation of effective policy and management interventions... Rural nursing homes had lower operating margins than urban facilities in unadjusted models. However, after adjusting for organizational factors such as size, occupancy, and payer mix, the rural–urban difference was no longer significant. Environmental factors, including population demographics and income levels, contributed to financial disparities. COVID-19 exacerbated financial challenges, disproportionately affecting rural facilities... Financial disparities between rural and urban nursing homes are not solely due to geographical location, but also stem from structural challenges. These insights have significant policy implications suggesting that addressing reimbursement rates, operational efficiency, and resource allocation is crucial to ensure the financial sustainability and quality care for aging populations.