title: Impact of establishing an Alzheimer's special care unit in a nursing home on facility occupancy and payer mix.
abstract: In this research, we used national data collected over a period of 12 years (1991 to 2003) to examine whether nursing homes opening an Alzheimer's Special Care Unit (A-SCU) subsequently influenced their occupancy, Medicare payer mix, or private-pay mix. Data used in this investigation primarily came from the 1991 to 2003 On-line Survey Certification of Automated Records and the Area Resource File. Approximately, 20% (n=2,815) of nursing homes had an A-SCU in 2003. We found that opening an A-SCU promoted more favorable occupancy rates and private-pay mix, but did not influence Medicare payer mix. Three years after opening an A-SCU, the gain in occupancy rate for nursing homes was more than 3% and the gain in private-pay census was approximately 2%. These gains occurred while the national trend was one of declining occupancy and private-pay census.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. CASTLEN@Pitt.edu
authors.forename: Nicholas G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Castle
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D001509:Bed Occupancy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D014481:United States