A nationwide crisis in senior care is looming as elderly patients struggle to find nursing home beds.
While the number of nursing homes in the United States has declined, demand has risen, leaving many senior citizens in limbo. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that 97 nursing homes had closed in 2023 as of July, marking a decline of roughly 600 facilities in the past six years.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, dozens of nursing homes closed in Texas between 2020 and 2022 due to staffing issues and financial strain, with those still in operation forced to limit intakes.
Due to the unavailability of nursing home beds, some elderly patients have been forced to wait months in hospitals. Some states have seen a higher net loss of nursing home beds than others, with data from Massachusetts suggesting that an average of 563 patients a month were stuck waiting in hospitals, the WSJ reported.
Moreover, counties with fewer nursing homes often have more elderly residents. For such individuals, the closing of a local senior care facility could mean having to relocate far from family and friends or other disruptive shifts in living arrangements.
Several factors, including expanded Medicaid funding for home-based services since 2013, have contributed to the nationwide loss of nursing home beds.
However, the shrinkage became even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus prompted many families to opt for in-home care for their elderly loved ones.
In fact, last year, UnitedHealth Group Inc. made a significant investment in home-based healthcare by purchasing the LHC Group, an organization providing home health aides and nurses, for $5.4 billion, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Meanwhile, nursing homes lost staff and have struggled to recruit new hires, with a report published in January by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) showing that workforce levels — an estimated 1.3 million workers — had hit a low not seen since 1994.
“The data doesn’t lie. This is not just an exaggerated call for help, and this labor crisis will not go away on its own or through government enforcement,” said Mark Parkinson, president and chief executive officer of AHCA/NCAL, in a press release. “Our nursing homes are struggling to recruit caregivers, and if we do not get meaningful assistance soon, then the consequence will be hundreds of thousands of seniors displaced.”
A much larger crisis is also on the horizon, with the number of U.S. residents aged 65 and over expected to increase from 56 million to 81 million by 2040.