Impact of establishing an Alzheimer's special care unit in a nursing home on facility occupancy and payer mix.

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.