Downsizing coming to LTC

Specialties Geriatric

Published

I wanted to get some information as I heard that several NYC non profit SNF are going to be reducing beds and that a few SNFs may close. Maintaining census is getting hard as hospitals referring more of their patients to home health services and managed care is reducing LOS. Home health is booming but SNF care and sub acute care in SNF could be dwindling. My concern is that with so many new nurses graduating, the few opportunities available to these nurses (LTC & Sub acute care) will get even fewer. It is sad to see a new nurse have to go to a LTC/SN facility but at least it is a job with some experience. (New nurses need to go to a hospital to learn the basics and assessment skills then go out into specialty areas---you can not run until you learn to walk). As these places reduce beds or close (lets hope not), this further reduces the few opportunities available. I live and work in NYC. The job market for experienced nurses is tight and very difficult for a new nurse, even if she has a BSN. LTC was more open to new grads and was more willing to take a chance on a new comer. I am concerned for the new grads but also for us veteran nurses as to what is going on. We have had several SNF close/downsize recently without any public out crying and the fear among my colleagues in the industry is that more downsizing and closures are coming for non profit SNF.

Comments...

Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

Really? Do you REALLY believe what you just wrote, much less his "send" on?

I feel very sad for you if you think that ONLY hospital experience is valuable and that "having" to go to a SNF/LTC is some kind of punishment. LTC/Rehab nurses get more chances at assessments that many hospital nurses. Many of them become pretty freaking awesome at it too!! YOU are just the type of person that perpetuates the myth that the only job a new grad should have is hospital-based, and then when they can't land one, they feel like a failure.

Shame, shame, shame on you.

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I wanted to get some information as I heard that several NYC non profit SNF are going to be reducing beds and that a few SNFs may close.
The situation is totally different in the neck of the woods where I live (Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas). The post-acute market is booming, with new LTC facilities and specialty rehab hospitals being built to meet the demand.

Acute care hospital inpatient stays are decreasing in length around here, but the patients typically discharge to SNF or a post-acute rehab hospital for a few weeks of PT/OT because these people are simply too ill to go home safely.

Be cognizant that the local economy is probably intertwined in all of this. Most parts of Texas did not experience the steep rises in unemployment and homelessness that plagued NYC, Philly, and other Northeastern metropolitan areas. Therefore, a higher percentage of people are employed and insured here, which helps to maintain their statuses as active consumers of acute and post-acute care.

Whoa, Bucky. Kinda harsh, don't you think?

I my experience, it is the nursing schools themselves that perpetuate the notions that (A) there is a nursing shortage, and (B) Nursing students should aspire to acute-care, hospital positions.

If anyplace needs to be shamed, it is the nursing schools who perpetuate these myths, in order to keep those tuition dollars flowing in...

Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

Exactly. If nursing schools are putting out that propaganda, don't you think it's up to us to dispell the myth?! Why hold back information about the truth or even worse, expound on the lies being told by certain nursing schools?

QUOTE=Dewman;7996726]Whoa, Bucky. Kinda harsh, don't you think?

I my experience, it is the nursing schools themselves that perpetuate the notions that (A) there is a nursing shortage, and (B) Nursing students should aspire to acute-care, hospital positions.

If anyplace needs to be shamed, it is the nursing schools who perpetuate these myths, in order to keep those tuition dollars flowing in...

The LTC facility where I got my first licensed nurse job, downsized more than 20 years ago. Ask me how I know. What is new?

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