Nursing Home Fact Sheet - Facts About Nursing Homes
Protecting residents' rights and providing quality care in long term care facilities for people who are frail and disabled is not a new concept. From the colonial times, care for the elderly poor has been a responsibility of the government. Up until 1820 the government’s response to providing long term care was to auction off impoverished citizens to families who often provided poor living conditions in return for grueling work.
The expression “over the hill” comes from an 1871 ballad that depicts the plight of an old woman cast out by her children to live in a government-run workhouse. This “poor farm” image of long-term care still carries a very strong negative connotation with many elderly people receiving services today.
One of the initial inventories of the nursing home industry was done by the Bureau of Census in 1939. It counted 1,200 facilities with 25,000 beds. By 1960, there were 9,600 nursing homes with 330,000 beds. In 1970, there were 23,000 facilities with 1.1 million beds. Currently there are 17,000 nursing homes caring for about 1.6 million residents.
The nursing home industry with a projected $87 billion in revenues in 1999 is the fastest growing major segment of the health care field. The federal government paid for a projected $39 billion in 1999 through Medicare and Medicaid.
For-profit corporations own or control 80% of the nation’s nursing homes (which have 75% of the nation’s beds), while 87% of hospitals are non-profit organizations. There are more than three times as many nursing homes as hospitals.
Far too often the nursing home industry is large on profits and short on quality care. The only real safety net for our grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers, are family members and the Long Term Care Ombudsman.
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