Dignity AllianceWe have shared reports on Highview Nursing Home in Northhampton before. While we were pleased to see the closure of Highview of Northampton, one of the lowest-rated nursing facilities in Massachusetts, at the end of 2024, we raised concerns about the closure process. We were particularly concerned that many residents would be pressured to accept […]
What Lies Ahead For Medicaid In Budget Reconciliation?Health AffairsBy Sara Rosenbaum and Alison BarkoffFebruary 11, 2025 President Trump recently stated, “We will love and cherish” Medicaid, promising that budget cutting would be limited to finding waste and abuse. But that sentiment is not likely to prevail as Congress moves forward with massive budget cutting efforts, […]
Your Parents Deserve More From Their Nursing HomeNew York TimesBy Norma B. Coe and Rachel M. WernerFebruary 7, 2025 Dr. Coe is the director of research and Dr. Werner is the executive director at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. For anyone who lives in a nursing home, the […]
Dignity Alliance Massachusetts selected Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell as its “Champion of Dignity and Care” for 2024. The award was presented on January 29, 2025. “The Attorney General is the first Constitutional Officer chosen to be honored by Dignity Alliance. In 2022 and 2024, the non-profit, all-volunteer, statewide advocacy coalition has recognized federal and […]
Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA)Nursing facilities serve an important role in the continuum of health care services in Massachusetts, providing nearly 12 million patient days of service in 2023. To better understand this component of the Massachusetts health care system, CHIA’s new dashboard, released in January 2025, examines the Commonwealth’s nursing facilities […]
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ServicesJanuary 14, 2025 (updated) Summary:The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching a national Nursing Home Staffing Campaign aimed at increasing the number of nurses working in nursing homes and at the state agencies that inspect nursing homes for compliance with health and safety standards. CMS will provide […]
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)January 10, 2025 KEY POINTS• A CMS rule finalized on November 17, 2023, enhances ownership transparency and policy by requiring detailed disclosures about the ownership and managerial control of nursing homes.• Publicly available CMS ownership files offer essential information for mapping nursing home structures, assuming the […]
May 2025: The Campaign to Increase the Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) Download the A Raise for Mom – the Campaign to Increase the PNA (pdf). For nearly 20 years, the Personal Needs Allowance for Nursing Home and Rest Home residents has been stuck at $72.80 per month. If inflation had been factored since the amount […]
Nonprofit QuarterlyBy James Lomastro, PhD, January 6, 2025Editor’s Note: James Lomastro is a member of the Dignity Alliance Massachusetts Coordinating Committee and is the Chair of several workgroups. Dignity in Action: From Institutional Failure to Decentralized Empowerment Forged amid the suffering, deaths, and neglect that prevailed in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, this peer-led […]
Nurse.org, By Angelina WalkerJanuary 2, 2025 The debate over private equity’s role in healthcare has intensified in recent years, with critics arguing that the profit-driven model of these investment firms is incompatible with high-quality patient care and safety. Recent developments have added fuel to this ongoing discussion as private equity (PE) firms have been increasingly […]