Even before the coronavirus swept through the skilled nursing industry, many were struggling with thin profit margins. Now they could be wiped out, according to an article in The New York Times Tuesday.
Since the outbreak began, nursing home operators have had to spend more money on protective equipment for staff and technology to connect residents with relatives who no longer are allowed to visit. Their revenues have shrunk because they are admitting fewer new residents in hopes of reducing the risk of infection.
The result is that some facilities may be unable to sustain themselves without government support.
“It could be a huge economic mess,” Charlene Harrington, a professor emerita of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, told the New York Times. “It is possible that many nursing home chains could go bankrupt.”
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