In an eight-year stretch, 645 nursing facilities in the U.S. closed, the number of nursing facility residents dropped 12% and the average number of hours residents received declined 9%, a KFF analysis found.
The analysis, published Jan. 5, examined nursing facility characteristic data from Nursing Home Compare data and Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports between 2015 and 2023.
Here are seven things the analysis found about nursing homes:
- Of for-profit facilities, only 10% meet the required number of hours for nurses and nurse aids, while 40% of non-profit and government homes currently meet the requirement.
- The number of nursing facilities dropped by 4%, or 645, between 2015 and 2023.
- The number of nursing facility residents dropped from 1.37 million in July 2015 to about 1.2 million in July 2023, a 12% decrease.
- The average number of hours of nursing care that residents receive per day declined by 9% in that span, from 4.13 to 3.77 hours.
- The average number of facilities with serious deficiencies increased from 17% to 26%.
- As of July 2023, 71% of facilities in the U.S. were for-profit, 22% were nonprofit and 6% were government owned.
- As of July 2023, Medicaid was the primary payer for 62% of nursing facility residents, Medicare was the primary payer for 13% of residents and 25% of residents had another primary payer, such as private insurance or were paying out of pocket.