Roughly 83% of skilled nursing facilities reported seeing improvements in occupancy rates since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 36% reporting significant improvements, a recent Ziegler survey found.
Ziegler published its CFO HotlineSM survey in December; it included responses from more than 240 organizations. Approximately 60% of respondents were single-site older adult living providers, and respondents were heavily weighted toward not-for-profit life plan community organizations.
Many respondents left comments at the end of the survey. They ranged from "Tough business and seems to get tougher every day" to "We are expanding and adding beds, which is ironic as the rest of the world is looking to reduce."
Another respondent said, "We are probably the anomaly in the industry. Skilled nursing has been a foundational element of service offerings from the beginning. Instead of decreasing SNF beds/revenue, we have chosen to add other revenue streams for diversification."
Here are five findings:
- In the last two years, 37% of facilities reported permanently reducing the number of skilled beds.
- Of facilities that reduced beds, 71% of them reduced beds by 11% to 50%.
- An average of 27% of total units were dedicated to nursing care beds, with 50% dedicated to independent living and 23% to assisted living.
- Of units, 71% are single occupancy while 29% are double occupancy.
- Staffing issues have forced a reduction in admissions for 46% of facilities.