Non-Profit versus For-Profit Long-Term Care Providers: Does It Make a Difference?
LeadingAge is an organization representing “nonprofit” long-term care providers, including operators of CCRCs, home health agencies, day-care centers, nursing homes, Section 8 public housing, and similar companies. During the recent national meeting of LeadingAge in Nashville, one topic was an “alarming trend” in the growth of the for-profit long-term care sector. As reported in McKnight’s, during the conference LeadingAge Chairman David Gehm warned the audience that the for-profit sector is “growing nearly eight times as fast as the nonprofoit sector … citing figures from investment bank Ziegler.” Gehm is reported as pointing to reduced access to affordable capital as as one factor contributing to the pressures on the nonprofit industry. He argued a “vibrant nonprofit long-term care sector benefits the whole country.”
On the consumer-cost side of the equation, it does seem that what was once a price differential between the two sectors for cost of care is narrowing. Nonetheless, historically there has been a certain additional trustw0rthiness factor associated with monprofit providers that often gave them an edge in the marketplace. But is that still true?
As my students in my Nonprofit Organizations class come to realize, there is often a difference between “charitable” care and “nonprofit” care. But is the difference between nonprofit care and for-profit care becoming harder to evaluate?