The Supreme Court’s recent summer decision in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana, et al. v. Talevski has raised the stakes for nursing homes by ruling that private litigants may bring civil claims against facilities to recover damages for violations of certain provisions of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act (FNHRA). This decision provides powerful incentives for nursing homes and other facilities subject to the FNHRA to enhance their monitoring and compliance processes.

CMS released a proposed rule to establish staffing standards among the nation’s nursing homes. Reactions have been mixed — but mainly negative. Long-term care facilities say that they can neither find nor afford more workers. On the other hand, some lawmakers argue the proposed rule doesn’t do enough to protect care quality for patients. As for labor unions, they seem generally happy with the rule.

A professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School shared research with the committee concluding that COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes were largely a function of where in the country a nursing home was located versus other specifics about the facility. 

A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine finds nursing home care to be subpar, despite regulations to prevent poor care; recommendations for improvement include funding research and offering customized, integrated, and culturally sensitive care.

The state of California is suing Brookdale Senior Living for alleged patient safety violations at 10 nursing homes in the state and for providing false data to boost its CMS star rating. Brookdale denies both claims.

Across the country, some nursing home directors and health care officials say the partnership between federal government and pharmacy retailers is actually hampering the vaccination process by imposing paperwork and cumbersome corporate policies on facilities that are thinly staffed and reeling from the devastating effects of the coronavirus

A new variant of SARS-Cov-2 thought to be more transmissible was discovered in Colorado’s eastern plains and San Diego, California. At the same time, federal vaccination rates are lagging far behind projections.

CVS and Walgreens began administering the first doses of Covid-19 vaccines across long-term care facilities last week. But many questions still remain about how it will be administered to the general public.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released new data showing the number of Covid-19 deaths and infections in nursing homes. But as it currently stands, the data has too many errors to be helpful for families trying to decide between individual facilities.   

After finding that nearly 26,000 Covid-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes, CMS is ratcheting up penalties for noncompliance with infection control. 

CEO Tim Peck confirmed the news to CNBC, saying the company ran out of the cash it needed to continue to scale the business and was laying off roughly 100 employees.

Irene DuRell, 82, works on what she calls a German star by intricat…