“Assisted Living Compare???” The Writing is On the Wall.

April 1st, 2016

You mean…like “Hospital Compare?”

That’s exactly what I mean.

Why not? Why not implement an online, head-to-head comparison of the healthcare features of assisted living communities using objective health data? Wouldn’t consumers be interested in a 1 page summary describing the healthcare metrics of the top 4 or 5 local ALs they are considering?

I have to be honest…as much as I object in principle to government regulation and interference in American healthcare, I like (and even appreciate) Medicare.gov forcing key members in the healthcare sector (shown below) to make their quality healthcare metrics available to the public.

I can view a wide variety of quality measures that indicate the ability of these members to provide care for me or my loved ones. I can then use this information when choosing a hospital or nursing home, etc. that best fits my needs.

And it’s the healthcare that causes me to seek out these members – not their lunch, not their wonderful cafeteria, not their gift shop, not their beautiful building with cool design elements of one kind or another. These ancillary features, although not insignificant, are just amenities. They add ‘color’ but not ‘substance.’ They are NOT my reason for seeking them out. It is because I need help with my healthcare that causes me to seek them out. If I didn’t need help with my healthcare, I wouldn’t go there. And because of that, my primary concern is learning the ability of these members to manage or provide the healthcare I need.

So…why not add ‘Assisted Living Compare’ to the list? Since the only reason prospective residents seek this setting is similar to the other members – because they need help with their healthcare – then isn’t it intuitive that consumers would be interested in these comparisons if this information were available to them?

You may think that the assisted living industry might be reluctant or even resist measuring and revealing healthcare metrics and participate in something that may seem invasive and unwanted. But there is growing precedent that strongly suggests such a requirement is near.

And just like Poe’s ‘The Telltale Heart,’ if you listen quietly, you can hear the heartbeat of government regulation within the very walls that surround you.

Take, for example, the 2015 GAO report that investigated the use of anti-psychotics in nursing homes. The report recommended expanded actions to reduce the use of antispychotics in assisted living.

Or a 2015 request to the GAO from the Comptroller General of the United States to review Medicaid spending and federal and state oversight of care provided to Medicaid enrollees in Assisted Living Communities.

Or the new 2016 DOJ report describing the implementation of regional Task Forces to assess care standards in nursing homes, assisted living, and other long term care providers.

Or consider the renaming of the long term care industry, now known as the Long Term Post Acute Care (LTPAC) industry – a single moniker that no longer means only nursing homes but now includes the full spectrum of community based healthcare, including assisted living. The motivation for this change is to eliminate provider silos and facilitate person centric healthcare.

And as far as the government is concerned, you can bet that regulations that apply to one of the members of the LTPAC community will surely ultimately apply to them all. So those regulations that haven’t yet spilled over into the assisted living industry are on their way – it’s just a matter of time.

And as long as the assisted living industry passively views itself solely as a hospitality industry with little interest in self-discovery of the healthcare it manages, then the regulations that should come from within the industry will most surely be imposed from without.

Yep…that means the government!

And the government is just like my weird aunt Betty. Once you let it into your house, it NEVER LEAVES!

E-mail me with comments:

st**********@il*******************.com

Dr. Steven Fuller

Dr. Steven Fuller is a triple board certified physician/entrepreneur who develops programs in support of an Integrated Care model of senior housing. This model includes 3 equal, interactive, and mutually supportive team members: real estate, hospitality, and healthcare.