Nursing home oversight would be tightened under a bill passed in Massachusetts

Nursing home oversight would be tightened under a bill passed in Massachusetts

BOSTON — Massachusetts’ oversight of nursing homes would be strengthened, LGBTQ+ nursing home residents would be protected against discrimination, and better controls would be in place to protect against the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, under a new bill lawmakers passed this week. Approved on Thursday, the bill would require long-term care facilities to provide … Read more

Despite surging demand for long-term care, providers struggle to find workers

Despite surging demand for long-term care, providers struggle to find workers

The hardest part of Culix Wibonele’s first job in long-term care was not getting injured. Originally from Kenya, Wibonele worked as a certified nursing assistant in Atlanta in 2014. She went to the homes of mostly older clients, helping them with everything from bathing to cooking. Wibonele worked alone and sometimes had to lift clients … Read more

Black Americans are underrepresented in residential care communities, AP/CNHI News analysis finds

Black Americans are underrepresented in residential care communities, AP/CNHI News analysis finds

Norma Upshaw, 82, was living alone south of Nashville, when her doctor said she needed to start in-home dialysis. Her closest family lived 40 miles away, and they’d already scrambled once when the independent senior living facility she had called home — a community of largely Black residents — had closed with 30 days’ notice. … Read more

Adult day services provide stimulation for older Americans, and respite for full-time caregivers

Adult day services provide stimulation for older Americans, and respite for full-time caregivers

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — Sally White helps her husband of 46 years get dressed, fed and on the bus for the short ride from their home to Third Age Adult Day Center four mornings a week. Preparing 74-year-old Rodger White to leave the house for the day can be a chore since he’s been in declining … Read more

Older Americans often don’t prepare for long-term care, from costs to location to emotional toll

Older Americans often don’t prepare for long-term care, from costs to location to emotional toll

MANKATO, Minn. — Seven tough weeks passed with her husband in the hospital before Nancy Gag Braun found long-term care for him. From 2019 up until that point in 2022, Braun had cared for Steven at their Mankato home. A traumatic brain injury in February 2019, followed by his progressive dementia, eventually led to the … Read more

Black Americans are underrepresented in residential care communities, AP/CNHI News analysis finds

Black Americans are underrepresented in residential care communities, AP/CNHI News analysis finds

Norma Upshaw was living alone south of Nashville when her doctor said she needed to start in-home dialysis. Her closest family lived 40 miles away, and they’d already scrambled once when the independent senior living facility the 82-year-old had called home — a community of largely Black residents — had closed with 30 days’ notice. … Read more

State Medicaid offices target dead people’s homes to recoup their health care costs

State Medicaid offices target dead people’s homes to recoup their health care costs

WASHINGTON — As Salvatore LoGrande fought cancer and all the pain that came with it, his daughters promised to keep him in the white, pitched roof house he worked so hard to buy all those decades ago. So, Sandy LoGrande thought it was a mistake when, a year after her father’s death, Massachusetts billed her … Read more