do nurse owned nursing homes exist?

[Ginger's Person]

I'm just asking out of general curiosity. Has anyone ever heard of a nursing home/residential LTC facility that is owned by a group of nurses?

Lately there has been a lot of info posted around here and in the news about nursing homes being run by really sketchy corporations, who have everything except the long term well being of the residents and staff in mind. I don't know a lot about this, but it's pretty scary.

When physicians felt that hospital administrators were making too many decisions that affected their incomes and autonomy, groups of physicians across the country started their own hospitals, HMO's, and clinics. Dean Healthcare in is an example where I live, but there are many others. I'm not saying this has been a good thing for patients, I think these hospitals can be pretty terrible, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

I just have this vision of a professional group of nurses getting together and building a nursing home where nurses make the rules, make the profits (if there are any to be had), and provide the care, similar in many ways to how MD's have been building hospitals. I can think of a several reasons why this might not work (nurses have less money to invest than MD's, less profit in LTC than in hospitals, fewer nurses with experience running their own practice...), but I wonder if anyone's ever tried it or thought of it.

[Kabin]

Alright, I may have just found my career ambition :)

For this week, anyway...

It's a growth industry for the future, more easily done by starting a group home. Some biz/financial challenges to get it up and going.

Aside from patient care it's difficult work, 24/7 hours - you'll need someone you can trust for vacations/weekends/sleep coverage, lots of employee turnover, difficult to hire trustworthy people, inspections, family issues, liability issues, license risks, lots of Costco shopping, continuous cooking and cleaning, filling empty beds, .... Seek out someone that's done it. I heard one fellow nurse employee tried it once and came back to the normal 8-5, m-f job.

[jjjoy, LPN]

Generally only big companies with severe cost containment policies that put employees in a tight spot day to day are willing to get into the nursing home business. Apparently, it CAN be done and be profitable at the level of family business, but it takes a big investment and on-going personal sacrafice (round-the-clock work, no vacations, etc).

In my ideal world, there would be incentives and protections in place to encourage more people to get into the business and be able to be profitable. As it is, liability and legal issues and a plethora of ever-changing and multiplying regulations are very high barriers to individuals and small investors.

Protection of consumers from incompetence and outright abuse is important, so I do believe in regulation. But providers also need protections, such as from unreasonable liability risks. No matter how competent and on top of things a provider is, bad things will happen sometimes (eg accidental falls) and there should be reasonable policies in place regarding what providers can be held legally and fiscally responsible for. I'd like to see reasonable policies in place for childcare as well.

Yes, in my ideal world, nursing home care would profitable, affordable, and accessible without exploitation of staff or negligence of residents... but is it possible in the real world? I don't know!