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Programs designed to help elderly people with coronavirus are creating a perverse financial incentive for nursing homes with bad track records to bring in sick patients, raising the risks of spreading infections and substandard care for seriously ill patients, according to advocates for the elderly and industry experts. Coronavirus-positive patients can bring in double or more the funding of other residents. States including California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Mexico, wanting to relieve pressure on crowded hospitals, are providing extra incentives for nursing homes to accept such patients. (Severns and Roubein, 6/4)

Nursing homes will face weekly fines if they fail to submit COVID-19 case and death data to the federal government, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said Thursday. More nursing homes have complied with the data requirements, with 88% — or 13,600 — of Medicare and Medicaid facilities submitting data as of May 31. They recorded more than 95,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, another 58,000 suspected cases and nearly 32,000 deaths, CMS said. That data, which excludes assisted living facilities, was made public Thursday. (Christ, 6/4)

COVID-19 may have extracted a heavier toll on nursing home patients and workers than Georgia has recognized, according to data released Thursday by the federal government. At Legacy Transitional Care & Rehabilitation in Atlanta, 33 residents and five employees have died of COVID-19 so far this year, by the federal count. The state shows only 11 deaths from the coronavirus at the facility as of Wednesday. At Westbury Medical Care and Rehab in Jackson, 42 residents and one worker’s death were tied to the coronavirus, according to the federal report. State reports showed 34 deaths at Westbury. (Teegardin, 6/4)

More than four dozen nursing homes were flagged for concerning results in at least one category of a COVID-19 audit conducted in late May, the Baker administration announced Wednesday, adding that dozens more that previously received similar warnings fared well on follow-up investigations. Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said 49 of the 230 nursing homes audited between May 18 and May 29 "remain in the red," indicating they failed to meet one or more core measures of competency for responding to the highly infectious virus that has swept through facilities across the state. (Lisinski, 6/4)

New federal data released Thursday reflect the rising death toll from covid-19 at the nation’s nursing homes and the desperate need at thousands of facilities for critical personnel and basic supplies. More than three months after the coronavirus began sweeping through U.S. nursing homes, thousands of homes are still underequipped for the continuing onslaught, the data show. So far, the number of nursing home deaths attributed to covid-19 has reached nearly 32,000 residents and more than 600 employees, and both counts are sure to rise: About 12 percent of the nation’s 15,000 homes have not yet reported figures. (Whoriskey, Cenziper, Englund and Jacobs, 6/4)

The coronavirus pandemic dealt a crushing blow to nursing homes across the U.S., driving down their occupancy by nearly 100,000 residents between the end of 2019 and late May, according to new federal data. The data gives the public its first broad look into individual nursing homes and sheds new light on the scale of the pandemic’s impact on the industry and those it serves. Nursing homes reported nearly 32,000 resident deaths linked to the coronavirus, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday. (Weaver, Wilde Mathews and Kamp, 6/4)

The Bayview Hunters Point Adult Day Health Center gave Ernest and Linda Hills a much-needed routine. Taking care of Ernest, 82, had become increasingly difficult for Linda after he was diagnosed with dementia three years ago and Parkinson’s disease the following year. Then last summer she found the adult day health center, where her husband of four decades could get his physical and occupational therapy, socialize with friends and have access to recreational activities, all in the same place.“Going to the center was like a job for him,” said Linda Hills, 71. “It made him feel prideful.”Now the San Francisco center, and 260 others like it across California, could be forced to shut their doors by the end of the year. (Koseff, 6/5)