Business View - November 2015 137
number of HMO plans, Veterans Administration, hospice,
as well as respite placements.
Like many other skilled nursing facilities in the country,
because Regent Care of Reno accepts Medicaid - which is
the combined federal and state-sponsored insurance pro-
gram – change in the healthcare sector can often be dra-
matic because of changes in the program’s rules or for-
mulas. For example, Enad reflects that for over five years,
the facility had a ventilator unit for patients who required
long-term and chronic mechanical ventilation. The facil-
ity suspended those operations last year when Medicaid
changed its guidelines.
Another change that Enad has witnessed in the health-
care landscape over the last several years, is a decrease
in the average age of the patients coming into the skilled
nursing environment. “In our facility we are seeing young-
er and younger patients; many in their thirties, forties, and
fifties, nowadays,” she says. “And they are getting a whole
lot sicker. Patients that should potentially be hospitalized,
are now being transferred to SNFs because there’s been
a change in the paradigm when it comes to a patient’s
criteria for acute stays. Normally, if you asked me ten, or
fifteen years ago, if they’d go to a nursing home, it would
be for rehab, or IVs, or wounds. . .but now it’s everything.”
Of course, that change in patient acuity hasmade it neces-
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Regent Care Center of Reno
WHAT:
nursing home and skilled nursing facility
WHERE:
Reno, Nevada
WEBSITE
:
HEALTHCARE
