The State House's golden dome looks down on the Boston Common on Oct. 4, 2023. State House News Service photo
The Healey administration plans to bring regulations to the Public Health Council to implement a two-year-old law that directed the state to consider out-of-state issues when weighing a nursing home license, an announcement that came on the heels of a media report that faulted the state’s oversight of nursing home transactions.
A Boston Globe Spotlight investigation published Monday reported that the Department of Public Health has not denied a nursing home acquisition or revoked a license in at least seven years, stretching back to the latter years of Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration. Over that period, DPH repeatedly approved purchases by RegalCare, a New Jersey chain whose owner acknowledged a personal role in a Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme when he agreed to a settlement with state and federal prosecutors last week. He also told the state on numerous applications that he had never had a license revoked, though his license was revoked by New Jersey in 2018, the Globe reported.
Senior living and nursing homes across the country have become popular among some real estate investors, anticipating a bump in demand from the Baby Boom generation and Generation X as they age out of their current homes.
The Globe story also detailed how the quality of some of RegalCare’s homes in Massachusetts has gone downhill since the company took over, with homes in Quincy and Taunton dropping from five-star ratings from the federal government to one-star ratings.
“Well, I want to make sure, as governor, that anyone who is putting a loved one in a nursing home knows and feels that their loved one is going to be well cared for,” Gov. Maura Healey told the News Service in New Bedford on Monday when asked if she was comfortable with DPH’s record of license approvals, including for RegalCare.
Healey pivoted to talk about the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, where more than 75 veterans died of COVID-19 after the facility failed to appropriately manage the pandemic, and her administration’s steps to open a new facility in Holyoke that “got a perfect rating” from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I want the same thing for all of our nursing home facilities, which is why I put forward the strongest regulations,” the governor said. “I think those regulations will bring the kind of accountability to the nursing home community across Massachusetts, and we’re going to continue to be really vigilant about that and get those out the door and make sure that we’re holding everybody accountable. I want everybody to be safe.”
The long-term care oversight law that Healey signed in September 2024 already directs DPH to weigh an operator’s out-of-state record and litigation when deciding whether to approve an acquisition. DPH has finalized the regulations to implement the 2024 law and plans to bring them to the Public Health Council on Oct. 14, the administration said late Monday.
“See, the important thing about my regulations — they’re new; and before the regulations, they didn’t have the power to do certain things. Now they do, and that’s the important thing,” Healey said Monday. “So going forward, you know, we’ll have the ability to do that scrutiny and to hold people accountable and to hold bad actors accountable.”
The regulations are not yet in effect.
Healey’s office said the 2024 law expressly directs DPH to consider a nursing home operator’s in-state and out-of-state quality history, criminal history, civil litigation, financial capacity, ownership and management-company history, and private equity involvement when weighing a transaction. Management companies are currently subjected to suitability scrutiny, the administration said, and the 2024 law requires continuing disclosure of significant changes in financial status, including receivership, bankruptcy, defaults and liens.
