Tag Archives: Financial Reports

THE STATE OF NURSING HOME FINANCIAL REPORTING IN POST TRUTH-AMERICA.

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By:

Dave Kingsley

American Tolerance of Corporate Deceit & Predatory Economics is Perplexing

    Misinformation can be harmful and even deadly. We have seen evidence of this maxim during the COVID crisis. We have seen it in the debate over climate change and in so many other critical issues confronting society. In post-truth America, it has become acceptable to put forth any mistruth or unverified and unverifiable claim and escape embarrassing denunciation, excoriation and censure. In no case is this more apparent than in the mistruths spread by for profit corporations in the nursing home business.

    It isn’t difficult to compile objective evidence that nursing home industry hardship pleas of low profits, thin margins, and other such claims are false and misleading.  The American Health Care Association/National Center for Independent Living, the industry’s lavishly funded propaganda organ, consistently spreads the narrative that corporations in the Medicaid and Medicare funded long-term care business are struggling financially and need a significant increase in reimbursements.

    A highly qualified financial sleuth isn’t needed for debunking the industry’s financial narrative of low profits and struggling investors.  Therefore, it may be difficult to understand how nursing home reform commissions and politicians escape public opprobrium for ignoring the patently obvious. However, it should be understandable that the finer points of nursing home finance isn’t on most peoples’ radar. We need to put it on everyone’s radar.

The Nursing Home Industry is Lying to the American People and Getting by with It

    The truth is that the federal and state governments allow for a charade in which facility-specific costs are submitted without any clarity about cash flowing to holding companies and parent corporations. We don’t really know how much Medicaid and Medicare revenue in the privatized nursing home system is extracted for dividends, and executive pay. ONE BIG EXCEPTION, HOWEVER, IS THE ENSIGN GROUP.

    With an annual revenue in 2022 of over $3 billion, the Ensign Group is the largest single provider of nursing home care in the United States.  It is also the only publicly listed company that earns revenue solely from Medicaid and Medicare funded long-term care.  More importantly for understanding the financial realities of the nursing home business, it is a publicly listed corporation and therefore must file financial reports with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).

    The Ensign Group annual 2021 10-K report submitted to SEC notes a net income of 8.5 percent and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of 13.7 percent.  However, an examination of their six facilities in Kansas reveal a combined net revenue of $55,567,680 and a combined operating negative net of -3,201,123 (-5.7%).  Five of the six facilities reported a negative net income.

Facility-Specific Cost Reports:  How the Big Lie Works.

     A review of Ensign Group cost reports in one state, i.e., Kansas, provides insight into how the misleading state-specific and facility-specific financial  system works.  Ensign operates six facilities in the state of Kansas.  Comparing the facility-specific cost reports to the consolidated financial report submitted by Ensign to the SEC is instructive in demonstrating the inadequacy of the cost reports as a measure of financial performance.

    For instance, Table 1 contains cost report data from an Ensign owned facility known as Riverbend Nursing Home in Kansas City, Kansas (incorporated and licensed as Big Blue, LLC). The data indicates that the facility, with a slight negative net operating income, lost money (this is 2021 data). It is typical for facility cost reports to show a very low or negative income but that doesn’t reflect what parent corporations are earning from the operations.

Table 1:  Net Operating Margin

Form CMS 2540-10:  Home Office Allocation & Related Parties

    Parent Corporations with a chain of facilities incorporated as LLCs can claim an allocation to their home office based on corporate expenses for operating each facility.  The “home office allocation” appears to be a large allowance for expenditures that are not fully clarified, not decipherable by the public, and, I believe, not understood by state auditors.  For instance, Table 2, includes claims for Ensign home office allocation and payments to their subsidiaries paid for insurance and real estate.

Table 2: Part I, Riverbend Form CMS 2540-10

Corporate Hubris:  They Don’t Need to Answer Questions Required by Law

    A state auditor with whom I had a conversation recently asked me if I had any insight into the home office allocation that might be helpful for auditing purposes.  This person knew that I had been looking at cost reports across the U.S. and thought practices in other states might be something of a guide.  That the auditor wasn’t sure about how to evaluate funds extracted from revenue and sent up the chain of LLCs (often shell companies) to home offices tells us much.

    The auditor is in fact not the problem.  Statutes governing Part I of Form CMS-2540-10 (42 CFR 413.17) states that “such cost must not exceed the amount a prudent and cost conscious buyer would pay for comparable services, facilities, or supplies that could be purchased elsewhere.”  Commonsense suggests that pricing goods and services sold to related parties requires some sophisticated and extensive analyses. Do states have the regulatory capacity to do that?  Advocates and scholars need to raise that issue with legislators and demand to see any evidence supporting decisions to approve claimed expenditures to related parties.

Part II of Form CMS 2540-10:  How Vague Can They Be?

    Part II of Form CMS 2540-10 requires far more detail than shown in Table 2, which reflects the exact data submitted by the Ensign Group for its facilities. For instance, the statute requires that an entity listed in Column 4 “enter a percent of ownership in the provider.”  That may not be a logical question because Ensign corporate owns everything.  Gateway Healthcare is a shell company that merely hides the flow of capital, avoids taxes, and protects the facility from liability.  Theoretically, Gateway owns 100% of Riverbend, but Ensign owns 100% of Gateway (an LLC incorporated in Nevada).

Therefore, Ensign’s facility-specific cost reports merely ignore statutory reporting requirements. That appears to be acceptable to state auditors. This kind of “catch us if you can” hubris is typical when an industry has an extraordinary amount of money to spread around in Washington and the 50 state legislatures.

Table 3: Part II, Riverbend Form CMS 2540-10

Summary:  CMS Allows States to Regulate Nursing Homes & Looks the Other Way

    CMS is not likely to fix the corrupt and inadequate nursing home financial reporting system. They will noodle with advocates and mull over all sorts of well-founded and sensible proposals but without pressure from legislators to counter the industry’s power in Washington and in the 50 states, the status quo will prevail. 

The political will just isn’t there at the national level. We need to change that.  Advocates are likely to make more progress at the state level by compiling cost reports in their respective states and take their analyses to the media and state representatives.     The critical – life and death – nature of this problem should lead the public to revolt if they understand it and have the evidence to clearly see that the industry narrative is false.

  Lack of staff and poor quality of care leads to shortened lives and considerable suffering.  That could be fixed by stopping the excessive extraction of cash sent up the line to investors and executives. That will only be stopped by a narrative based on verifiable fact and a coordinated effort to spread that narrative in the media and among state legislators. Financial data may not seem interesting on the evening television news or in the print media.  But we are obligated to make it understandable, interesting.

UnitedHealth Corporation is Piling Up Cash & Buying Back Stock. But the American Peoples’ Health for Which they are Paid to Improve is Deteriorating

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The Basics of UnitedHealth Financial Performance in 2022

With revenues of $324.2 billion in 2022, UnitedHealth (UH) is the fifth largest corporation in the United States (behind Walmart, Amazon, Apple, and CVS Health). Practically all of UH business is related to tax-funded health care such as Medicare and Medicaid. As one of the largest players in the move toward Medicare and Medicaid managed care, this company has had phenomenal growth in the past two decades (as have CVS Health and Centene Corporation).

UH revenue increased by 26% between 2020 and 2022 (from $257.1 billion to $324.2 billion). The company’s 2022 balance sheet notes $23.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents – an increase of $2 billion over 2021.

Capital Resources & Uses of Liquidity: No Indication of Allocation to Employee Wages & Working Conditions, R&D, or Improved Care

The Company’s 10-K states that “Increased cash flows provided by operating activities were primarily driven by changes in working capital accounts and increased net earnings.” (page 28). Given UH’s massive revenues from government expenditures and a robust operating margin of 8.8%, taxpayers, need to be aware of how the company’s surplus capital is allocated. Like any corporation, UH has debt obligations but expects to finance those from current operations. So, accumulated capital is available for other purposes.

On page 78, the 10-K indicates that he board of directors (which includes Washington, D.C. policy maven and healthcare influencer Gail Wilensky – see below) authorized expenditures of $7 billion for common stock repurchases in addition to $5 billion in 2021 and $4.5 billion in 2020. So, the company pumped up its share price during COVID-era by repurchases of stock totaling $16.5 billion.

In addition to a 2022 stock repurchase of $7 billion, UH increased the company’s quarterly cash dividend $5.80 per share to $6.60 per share. With 950 million share outstanding, approximately $6.27 billion in cash was paid to shareholders. Over 20% of the stock is owned by three asset management firms – Vanguard (8.44%), BlackRock (7.4%) and FMR LLC (5.165) – indeed, Institutional investors/asset managers own the bulk of the equities market. Retail investors own less than 10% of the equities traded on U.S. exchanges.

Stock Buy Backs Were Illegal in the U.S. Until 1982. They Should Still be Illegal – Especially When They Are Repurchased With Earnings From Tax Funded Medical Care

Stock repurchases are a thinly veiled form of stock manipulation and insider trading. Furthermore, this form of financialization of corporate activity benefits a small number of very wealthy Americans but is damaging to the overall economy. Earnings passed through to shareholders without retaining cash for employees, R&D, and long term investment puts downward pressure on economic growth and wages and fuels maldistribution of wealth, which has reached crisis proportions in the U.S.

Taxpayers have a right to fairness and equity in the use of capital earned through tax funded healthcare. They must demand that stock repurchases stop. Furthermore, the people of the U.S. have a right to a fair allocation of excess cash earned through healthcare for which they are taxed.

Board Members & Executives Should Be Held Accountable: It’s Not Their Money

Until the early 1980s, executives were compensated mostly in the form of salaries. As executive and board compensation has evolved, salary is now a small part of corporate compensation. Most executives and board members receive pay in the form of stock options and incentive stock awards. Philosophically, executives merit compensation if they enhance shareholder value and corporate financial success. As this philosophy has taken hold in the U.S. over the past 40 years, these rewards have become disconnected from productivity.

The boards and executives of healthcare corporations are focused on earnings and cash flow in the short term – not on reinvestment of excess earnings in long term improvement in the health of the U.S. population. As a matter of fact, life expectancy has been declining in the U.S. Although most states have contracted with these mammoth corporations to improve the cost and output of Medicaid systems, there is no substantial evidence that is happening. Furthermore, Medicaid, the poor peoples’ medicine they are charged with improving, is still stigmatizing and dehumanizing.

Each year, recipients are forced to run an administrative gauntlet of humiliating and frustrating reapplication that is much different than anything higher SES Americans experience in application for entitled health care. It appears that heart disease, poor prenatal care, diabetes, drug addiction, and other major chronic and acute diseases have not been reduced by Medicaid managed care. Nor is there evidence that a massive shift of U.S. healthcare dollars to corporations will lower the outrageous per capita cost of healthcare.

Despite failure to improve the overall healthcare of Americans, corporate boards continue to reward executives with lavish salaries and shareholders with high dividends. They justify that on financial grounds – not on success in improving overall health of the people.

Concentrated Wealth Leads Inevitably to Concentrated Power: Connecting Dots Inside the Washington, D.C. Beltway

Corporations are vying in the Washington, D.C. maze of politics, lobbying, and corruption to capture as much of the trillions in Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and other forms of government healthcare expenditures. They can pay for the influence they need in chasing ever increasing expenditures for healthcare.

I noticed that one Gail Wilensky, PhD is a UH board member. This caught my attention because Dr. Wilensky is a very influential policy maven about town in Washington. She has a very thick resume consisting of scholarly publications, served as a chair of MedPAC, held other high level government positions, and is generally a highly respected healthcare influencer. However, she receives about a half million in compensation per year as a UH board member and has accumulated over 51,000 shares of UH stock, which closed at $481.90 today (3/27/2023). Hence, the stock that she hasn’t sold and is still holding is worth about $24.6 million.

Dr. Wilensky also serves on the board of Quest Diagnostics and a smaller healthcare corporation (ViewRay). The following is her biography appearing on the Quest Diagnostics website:

“Dr. Wilensky, is a Senior Fellow at Project HOPE, an international non-profit health foundation, which she joined in 1993. From 2008 through 2009, Dr. Wilensky served as President of the Defense Health Board, an advisory board in the Department of Defense. From 1997 to 2001, she was the chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. From 1995 to 1997, she chaired the Physician Payment Review Commission. In 1992 and 1993, Dr. Wilensky served as a deputy assistant to the President of the United States for policy development relating to health and welfare issues. From 1990 to 1992, she was the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration where she directed the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Dr. Wilensky is a director of UnitedHealthcare Group and ViewRay, Inc. She served as a director of Manor Care Inc. from 1998 until 2009, Gentiva Health Services, Inc. from 2000 until 2009, Cephalon Inc. from 2002 to 2011 and SRA International, Inc. from 2005 to 2011. Dr. Wilensky also served as a Commissioner of the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health and as the Non-Department Co-Chair of the Defense Department’s Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care. She has been a director of Quest Diagnostics since January 1997. Dr. Wilensky has extensive experience, including in strategic planning, as a senior advisor to the U.S. government and private enterprises regarding healthcare issues and the operation of the U.S. healthcare system.”

Dr. Wilensky is merely one example, one individual among the ethically challenged thousands, caught up in the government-to-corporation-to government loop. Going from Senate staffer to the Senate Finance committee and on to K Street and a lobbying job for Big Pharma, United Health, or some other powerful Wall Street entity has become normalized. The American people are paying the price for the consequent maldistribution of power and wealth in taxes and poor health. The poor pay more.

Centene Corporation’s Annual Financial Report Indicates That Poverty is Profitable for Investors

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The Biggest Player in Poverty Medicine Had a Banner Year in 2022

    Among all U.S. corporations, Centene Corporation is ranked 20th in revenue. It is also a major player in the Medicaid Managed Care business.  The other leading corporations contracting with states in the $800 billion Medicaid program include United Health, Aetna/CVS, Anthem, and Molina. Most states have moved or will be moving to managed care and contracting with an MCO.  The big five have approximately half of that business now.  It is likely that the Medicaid MCO market will become increasingly concentrated and oligopolistic over the next few years.

    Centene can be said to be solely in the Medicaid managed care business.  According to its recently released annual 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, 97% of Centene 2022 revenues of $144 billion were derived from Medicaid and Medicare contracting – practically all of it from Medicaid.  The company’s cash flow statement notes $6.3 billion net cash from operating activities, which is a major indicator of “profitability.”  However, that is not the whole story regarding enhancement and protection of shareholder value.

Taking Care of Shareholders by Keeping Stock Price Propped Up

    Cash and cash equivalents on Centene’s balance sheet increased from $10.8 billion in 2020 – the early stages of the ongoing COVID pandemic – to $12.7 billion at the end of 2022. Taxpayers need to ask questions about how that hoard of cash is allocated.  I have tracked the company’s stock since late November of 2021 when the equities market began to tank.  It closed at $73.77 on November 29, 2021 and has been quite resilient despite the market decline since that time – trading in the high $70s and $80s.

    The strength of Centene’s stock price is most likely due to a $3 billion stock buyback. In 2022, the company’s board “authorized increases to the Company’s existing stock repurchase program, including $3.0 billion in June 2022 and an additional $2.0 billion in December 2022.” (see page, 34 of 10-K*).  With those increases, the Company was authorized to repurchase up to $6.0 billion.

    Stock repurchases, which are thinly disguised forms of stock manipulation/insider trading, were unfortunately deregulated during the Clinton Administration.  This financial maneuver benefits only shareholders and executives and does nothing for long-term investment in workers, R&D, patient quality, and other productive activities.  The benefits for executives and board members who have been awarded generous stock options involve strategies for exercising their right to sell stock based on insider knowledge (of which the public is unaware).

    Since the financial deregulation allowing loose rules about stock buybacks a corporate buyback frenzy has been underway. Free money handed out by the Federal Reserve from 2008 until Fed Chair Powell reversed course to quell inflation pumped $trillions into speculative finance, much of which was borrowed for stock repurchase. Consequently, the U.S. economy has been damaged and wealth has become increasingly maldistributed by the diversion of cash to a wealthy few that could be reinvested in long-term growth benefitting employees and overall economic growth. It seems to me to be the height of governmental irresponsibility to not regulate this kind of activity on the part of corporations which are rewarded for managing poor peoples’ health care.

Politically Powerful Board Members & Executive Board Compensation

    The revolving door from government to business is starkly obvious on the Centene board, which includes two powerful former congressmen – Tommy Thompson and Richard Gephardt. Mr. Thompson is also a former Secretary of Health and Human Services.  The Centene Proxy Statement for 2022 has not been issued to the public yet (we expect to see it within a month).  However, the 2021 Proxy Statement indicates that Mr. Thompson’s compensation in cash and stock totaled $403,046.  Mr. Gephardt’s compensation totaled $426,923.  The fine print below the compensation table states that both Mr. Thompson’s and Mr. Gephardt’s compensation included use of the company aircraft and other perks.

Executive Compensation

    The late Michael Neidorff had been Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board in 2019, 2020, and 2021 with compensation for those years of $26.4 million, $24.9 million, and $20.6 million respectively.  His replacement, Sarah M. London joined the board in 2021 as vice chairman and received 2021 compensation of $15.2 million.  The seven top executives received a total of $80 million in compensation in 2021.

Conclusion

    Medicaid expenditures in the U.S. will reach $1 trillion within the next few years.  Along with expenditure on military activities, this poverty program will remain one of the two biggest programs funded by U.S. income tax payers.  With expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, we anticipate that growth of tax-funded  poverty medical care will be rapid in the years ahead.  This raises the question of evaluation of these expenditures and public discourse about the quality of care.

    My initial foray into availability of state and federal data regarding the effectiveness and regulation of MCOs leaves me with considerable doubt about what taxpayers and legislators know about outsourcing medical care for poor people.  It is not difficult for me to uncover the inordinate executive compensation packages, stock buyback information, and financial performance metrics reported by major providers.  However, medical and ethical, questions arise regarding the justification for cash out to investors and executives given the care provided.  I will be sharing my research pertaining to Medicaid expenditures on this blog in the weeks, months, and years ahead. 

*The Centene 10-K can be accessed at https://investors.centene.com/all-filings?cat=1.

CENTENE CORPORATION, AMERICA’S 26TH LARGEST CORPORATION AND A MEDICAID CONTRACTING FIRM, REPORTS STRONG 3RD QUARTER EARNINGS

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By:

Dave Kingsley

Centene Corporation’s Business & 3rd Quarter Results

Centene Corporation contracts with states to manage Medicaid programs.  Two-thirds of the company’s revenue flows from means-tested, welfare, programs.  The other one-third of its revenue is derived from Medicare, Tri-Care, and their prison contracting subsidiary Centurion.  Basically, the bulk of this corporation’s business is poverty medicine. 

Centene purchased a non-profit organization in the 1990s and took it private.  In 2001, the company issued an IPO.  In a mere two decades, Centene increased its revenue to $111 billion (2021 revenue).  In 2021, Fortune magazine placed it at 24th in the “Fortune 500.”  Ahead of Centene was Anthem at 23rd with revenues of $122 billion, at 22nd was General Motors with revenue of $122.5 billion. As an illustration of the rapid growth of this poverty-medicine company, in 2018, it was ranked 63rd in the “Fortune 500,” with revenue of $48.6 billion.

Centene’s 3rd quarter revenue of $35.9 billion was a 11% increase over their 2021 3rd quarter revenue of $32.4 billion.  The company is on track to increase its 2022 revenue to $135 billion.  According to the 3rd quarter report, “The increase was driven by organic Medicaid growth, primarily due to the ongoing suspension of eligibility redetermination, 22% membership growth in the Medicare business, and [our] acquisition of Magellan Health, Inc. (Magellan), partially offset by the PANTHERx divestiture.”

Centene is predicting (called guidance in finance lingo) an increase in 2022 earnings per share of $5.65 to $5.75.  The company’s stock which is trading above $81 per share as I write this, has been outperforming the DOW & S&P since the equities market moved lower at a rapid rate in late November of 2021.  On November 29, 2021, Centene closed at $73.77 and has been incrementally moving up while the overall market has been moving down.

Executives, Board Members, & Shareholders

The recently retired Centene CEO/Chairman John Neidorff is one of the highest paid corporate executives in the United States.  Over the past 3 years his compensation has totaled $72,033,192.  He owns 1.5% of 560 million outstanding shares of Centene stock – today worth over $80 per share.  Hence, his wealth in stock alone is worth approximately $680 million.

Sarah London – Neidorff replacement as CEO – earned $15 million in 2021 before her promotion to CEO.  The eleven 2021 board members earned from $335,000 to $426,000.  In 2021, two powerful former congressmen on the board, Richard Gephardt and Tommy Thompson, were paid $426,923 and $403,046 respectively. 

An activist investor (Quinten Koffey of Politan Capital Management) acquired 2 percent of the stock and made a successful move to oust Neidorff.  London, his successor, was most likely in on the move.  The board has been restructured as part of the company’s long-term plan to improve its profit margin (https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/neidorff-retire-centene-activist-investor-board-shakeup/611465/).

In the Nursing Home Business, Medical Care Versus Financial Performance Is an Important Dimension

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Dave Kingsley

In a blog post, the financial facets of a company like The Ensign Group (“Ensign”) in the LTC/SKN business, must, of necessity, be distilled into and summarized through information from reports submitted to the Securities & Exchange Commission, cost reports submitted to state agencies, and CMS data. From a scientific perspective, all of that of data should be triangulated with other data related to capital markets, the state of the economy, Bureau of Labor Statistics wage/salary data, and so forth. 

Furthermore, given the financial information available to advocates and researchers, we should be able to consider the congruence between return on investment (shareholder interests) and the quality of care provided to patients.  LeadingAge and the American Healthcare Association/National Center on Independent Living (AHCA/NCAL) will invariably claim that businesses in LTC/SKN are operating “on a slim margin,” a “low net,” or some such term implying that it’s really a tough business in which providers are merely trying to stay solvent.

Those claims by industry representatives are based on cost reports submitted by each facility to state agencies – not on the financial metrics of parent corporations, e.g., income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.  In the previous post on this blog, I discussed the robust earnings reported by Ensign for the 2022 3rd quarter.  In this post, I juxtapose cost reports submitted by the following five Ensign facilities on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metroplex to reports submitted to the SEC: (1) Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation, (2) Shawnee Post-Acute & Rehabilitation Center, (3) The Healthcare Resort of Kansas City, (4) The Healthcare Resort of Leawood, and (5) The Healthcare Resort of Olathe.

These five facilities reported a combined net loss of $3,678,304 on a combined revenue of $46,801,526 – an 7.9% net loss overall.  In the previous post, I noted that the company reported +7.3% net for all operations.  But all Kansas facilities but one – Riverbend Post-Acute – reported a net loss.  Riverbend had a small net gain of $3,345 on revenue of $9,753,360 – a miniscule 3 tenths of 1%.

CEO Barry Port stated the following in his 3rd Quarter press conference: “We are grateful for the efforts and commitment of our teams, caregivers, and leaders who work endlessly to love and support one another, which allows for the high-quality outcomes they consistently achieve.”  I have no doubt that the employees work hard, are dedicated, and try to provide loving care.  However, if the five-star, CMS Nursing Home Compare rating system is meaningful at all the outcomes for the five facilities at issue in this post belie Mr. Port’s claim of high-quality outcomes.

There is not a 4- or 5-star rating among the five facilities.  Two have a 1-star rating, two have a 2-star rating, and one has a 3-star rating.   The Riverbend facility’s 1-star rating is accompanied by a red hand, which indicates that some serious abuse and neglect has been identified in the facility.  This facility was also an early media “poster child” for COVID deaths.  The Kansas City Star and other local media outlets were on the large number of Riverbend COVID deaths early in the pandemic.  I was interviewed by the local FOX affiliate.  It was not lost on perceptive journalists that the facility had received a 1-star rating not long before the COVID outbreak.  Lack of infection control was a major issue in the inspection leading to the low CMS-NHC rating.

Message for Advocates

A publicly listed company like Ensign provides advocates with an opportunity to consider consolidated financial statements of parent corporations in conjunction with financial data reported to state agencies.  The importance of this cannot be underestimated.  LeadingAge and the AHCA/NCAL have a political narrative based on a false impression that the industry is comprised of struggling businesses barely avoiding bankruptcy.  Industry media such Skilled Nursing News and McKnight’s Senior Living reinforce this narrative, which is based on the pervasively faulty and misleading cost reports – not consolidated financial statements.

My colleagues and I at Tallgrass Economics have embarked on a project to compile cost reports for all Ensign facilities.  We are interested in the combined payouts to their own ancillary businesses such real estate, insurance, management services, etc. that are expensed on cost reports which affect each facility’s net income but funnels cash to Ensign Corporate.  LeadingAge and AHCA/NCAL are relying on a report compiled by the accounting firm Clifton-Larson-Allen (CLA), which is based solely on cost reports. CRs are a ludicrous source of financial data.  This post is an initial effort to spread that truth.

Nursing Home Corporations are Beginning to Release Fourth Quarter Earnings. Are their Hardship Pleas Merited? Or is it Propaganda?

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The Ensign Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENSG) has Reported Robust Fourth Quarter Earnings – Now We Need to Discuss How Well They Protected Patients in Their Care from COVID

The information in this post is based on a conference call and webcast on February 4, 2021 at 10:00 A.M. PT (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/the-ensign-group-reports-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2020-results-1030040511).  When Ensign’s annual 10-K report is available, we will analyze all quarterly reports and their annual results to determine their overall 2020 performance.  We are interested in the amount of revenue the corporation received in the form of CARES Act grants/loans and other subsidization from various federal departments (e.g., HHS, IRS, etc.).

During the 4th quarter (Oct, Nov, Dec), the COVID pandemic spiked to levels unseen prior to that time.  Here are a few highlights from the Ensign release of 4th quarter results, which includes annual results:

  1. Earnings per share of $0.82 represent an increase of 67.3% over the prior year quarter.

  2. Earnings per share of $3.06 represent an increase of 86.6% over the prior year.

  3. Revenue of $2.4 billion for the year is an increase of 18.3% over the prior year.

  4. Medicare days increased by 22.1% over the prior year; hence, skilled revenue increased by 14.7% over the prior year.

  5. Real estate segment income of $31.3 million is an increase of 79.2% from the prior year.

  6. 2020 net income of 174.6 million is an increase of 74.8% over 2019. Fourth quarter earnings of $44.9 million represents an increase of 33.9% over the 4th quarter of 2019.

Although Ensign stock crashed with the rest of the market in mid-March 2020, it has recovered and has been trading in the low $80s.  It closed on Friday, February 5, 2021 at $83.82.  Analysts have rated it as “strong buy” (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/analysis/fi-a1rzsm).

CEO Barry Port had the following to say about 2020 operating results: “In spite of the continued challenges brought on as the result of the ongoing global pandemic, we are very happy to report another record quarter as we achieved our highest earnings per share in our history.”  He went on to praise the performance of “local teams” in protecting patients from COVID-19.

Whether The Ensign Group Deserves Praise for its Protection of Patients from COVID Remains to be Seen.  What Happened in Kansas City is not Strong Evidence that the Company Placed Care Over Extraction of Cash.

I must say that reading Port’s glowing report of Ensign’s infection and disease control effectiveness, I’m experiencing cognitive dissonance.  Last April, The Ensign Group’s Riverbend facility in Kansas City, KS began to appear in the local media as something of a poster child for COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes (e.g., Laura Bauer, “Two more COVID-19 deaths at Riverbend nursing facility in KCK reported Sunday,” https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronavirus/article241959296.html).

In January of 202 – prior to public awareness of the severity of the pandemic – the Riverbend facility received the lowest rating of 1 out of 5 stars on the CMS Nursing Home Compare website.  The facility was cited for lack of infectious disease control.  Apparently, fixing that problem was not a high priority for the company. As early as January, the world was becoming aware of a novel virus that could become a deadly pandemic outside of China’s borders.

I was interviewed by Fox4 News regarding the Riverbend situation and the nursing home industry in general. My words were reduced to rather meaningless soundbites.  Unfortunately, local and national media are not geared these days to in-depth research and analysis.  After focusing on the scandalous Riverbend deaths for a short period of time, the media jumped to the next scandal and then to the next scandal and on and on – from scandal to scandal.  No adequate analysis of the overall industry has been forthcoming.  Hence, Mark Parkinson and the AHCA can get away with claiming that the industry couldn’t afford to do any better than they have done.

Will the industry escape accountability for the deaths of people entrusted to its care?  Will our government, media, and the public just move on with no serious inquest into how corporations could remain profitable while they allowed perhaps 200,000 people in their facilities needlessly suffer and die? I’m horrified by the thought that the answer to these questions will be yes.  I’m not hearing much interest in pulling back the curtain on the opaque finances of the closely held corporations paid with Medicare and Medicaid dollars to determine what they could have and should have done to protect their patients.

By Dave Kingsley

DON’T WORRY ABOUT NURSING HOME CORPORATIONS: THEY ARE DOING FINE

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   By Dave Kingsley

Don’t worry about the financial impact of COVID-19 on the nursing home industry.  Corporations paid to provide long-term care appear to be doing well financially.  In this post, I want to begin a discussion of the industry’s and regulators’ failure to protect patients from a scourge they should have known was coming.  Unfortunately, nursing home owners are not being held accountable.  Quite to the contrary, they are being financially rewarded as victims of the pandemic.

    My purpose in this post is to highlight the subsidization of the industry through immediate cash infusions while nursing home personnel have been forced to work in the same low paid jobs without adequate personal protective equipment.  This is an initial post in a series of posts in which I will provide information gleaned from the 2nd quarterly reports of three different types of publicly listed nursing home corporations – privately held corporations’ financial information isn’t available because they are not required to file reports with the SEC.

    If the public thinks providers of nursing home corporations are financially strapped due to the COVID pandemic, they will be dissuaded from that perspective by the 2nd quarterly 10-Q reports filed by a sample of publicly listed corporations. Consider the financial reports of the following representative corporations:

The Ensign Group

    The Ensign Group, a holding company, owns the fifth largest nursing home chain in the United States.  The company was formed in 1999 and, based on SEC filings, has demonstrated a robust growth and strong financial performance.  According to its 2020 2nd Quarter report (10-Q)[1], its earnings of $.78 per share was a 100% increase over the prior year quarter.  Revenues for the quarter were $584.7 million and increase of 18.6% over the prior year quarter.  Net income for the quarter was $43.1 million, an increase of 99% over the prior year quarter.

   Apparently TEG was doing so well, the corporation decided to return $110 million it received from the federal government under the CARES Act[2], which was basically a handout to America’s corporations for keeping them solvent even though nursing home companies had a guaranteed price and ongoing revenue.  Furthermore, they benefitted from the Payroll Protection Program and the HEROES’ Act intended to help companies keep employees paid and enough capital to maintain solvency.  Although, the TEG balance sheet indicates that the company has $210 million in cash and $302 million in accounts receivables, it still took perhaps a 100 million dollars of PPP money and a host of other CMS supplemental payments.

Ventas Real Estate Investment Trust

    Ventas Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) is illustrative of one of various types of corporations dependent on revenue from skilled nursing facilities.  REIT’s in the nursing home business are a special type of commercial real estate, but they are also a special type of skilled nursing home corporation.  Although they buy and lease facilities, they actually lease to contractors such as Brookdale from whom they often buy facilities and lease them back while also maintaining an interest in and control over operations. Furthermore, REITs have an operational interest in skilled nursing facilities.  Ventas describes its business this way: “We primarily invest in senior housing, research and innovation, and healthcare properties through acquisitions and lease our properties to unaffiliated tenants or operate them through independent third-party managers.”

    According to Ventas’s 10-Q[3], the COVID pandemic has not been financially disastrous due to the injection of funds from the CARES, PPP, and HERO’S acts.

    “In our healthcare triple-net leased properties portfolio, we collected substantially all rent due in the first and second quarters. This cohort of tenants has benefitted from significant government financial support to partially offset the direct financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare providers. Nationally, hospital inpatient admissions and surgeries have rebounded, although still below pre-COVID-19 levels, depending on the particular market.”

Brookdale Senior Living

Brookdale Senior living is the largest operator of senior living properties.  The company has sold most of its real estate. 

During months ended June 30, accepted $33.5 million of cash from CARES Act.  During July 2020 company applied for additional grants Emergency Funds based on 2% of portion of 2018 gross revenue from patient care

Under the CARES Act, the Company has elected to defer payment of the employer portion of social security payroll taxes incurred from March 27, 2020 to December 31, 2020. One-half of such deferral amount will become due on each of December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2022. As of June 30, 2020, the Company has deferred payment of $26.5 million of payroll taxes and presented such amount within other liabilities within the Company’s condensed consolidated balance sheet.[4]

As of June 30, 2020, total liquidity was $600.2 million, consisting of $452.4 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, $109.9 million of marketable securities, and $37.9 million of additional availability on revolving credit facility.

Eric Carlson of Justice in Agency statement

    Eric Carlson, of Justice in Aging served on the so-called “Independent Nursing Home COVID-19 Commission,” and was the only member who refused to endorse the commission report resulting from a series of secret meetings between July and September.  I say good for him!  I say shame on those other members who either fully or partially endorsed a report that allowed the Trump Administration and nursing home corporations escape responsibility for dereliction of their duty to protect nursing home patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Mr. Carlson gave the following reason for his refusal to endorse the report: “With limited exceptions, these recommendations … do not address accountability of nursing homes and their operators.” Having spent a considerable amount of time analyzing the report thus far, I would say that he is correct.

    Not only did CMS use the report to excuse its own inept and failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it also ignored failure of the industry and expectations from nursing home corporations in the future.  The Trump Administration failed to hold corporations accountable.  Furthermore, they have been providing generous subsidies through the CARES, PPP, and HEROES Acts passed by congress in March to keep employees paid and businesses from bankruptcy.

[1] https://investor.ensigngroup.net/sec-filings/sec-filing/10-q/0001125376-20-000134

[2] Two major pieces of legislation, the CARES Act, and the HEROES Act, which include cash grants, support for employees, and deferred payroll taxes are responsible for injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the three corporations featured in this post alone.  The text of the acts can be found at:  https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3548/text?q=product+actualizaci%C3%B3n; https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800/text.  Detailed information from the income, balance sheet, and cash flow statements of major publicly listed nursing home corporations’ cash and equivalents, earnings, and liquidity indicate a rather strong financial position after several months of a nationwide pandemic.

[3] https://ventasreit.gcs-web.com/static-files/5ea1570e-14fd-45f6-8e31-15237eb49016

[4] https://brookdaleseniorlivinginc.gcs-web.com/static-files/0213cc1d-9228-4f8c-a7d4-273a1943197c