Many nursing homes across the country are in dire need of renovation. Residents need more privacy in their bedrooms and bathrooms, more autonomy in communal spaces, and more access to the outdoors. And staff and providers alike want to see these changes too—changes which not only improve quality of life and care, but also improve nursing homes as work environments.

Unfortunately, in many cases, the funding isn’t there to do it. For providers, losing capacity often isn’t an option. And even if it is, the upfront costs of big renovations can be prohibitive.

The Moving Forward: Nursing Home Quality Coalition, convened by LeadingAge with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation and the goal of realizing select recommendations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine’s report on nursing home quality, has made this issue a top priority. 

The Coalition, in particular, is looking to expand incentives for nursing home renovations that will increase the percentage of private bedrooms and bathrooms, improve access to community and outdoor spaces, and promote core elements of household models. And we’re leaving no stone unturned to do it.

At the federal level, we’re working on specific policy proposals to improve the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 232 mortgage insurance program. The program insures loans to nursing homes and other residential care facilities—$4.9 billion in 2021—for new constructions and renovations. But it doesn’t incentivize quality improvement. There are a number of changes HUD could make to the program tomorrow to help drive meaningful transformations in the construction of our country’s nursing homes—many of which follow precedents in other similar HUD programs.

We’re also bringing together state policy leaders to workshop ideas to fund and incentivize renovation projects. From boosting reimbursement rates for private rooms to offering property tax breaks to including new metrics in Medicaid Incentive Payment Programs, there are a number of things states can do to make nursing home renovations possible. The Coalition will bring state leaders together to discuss what’s worked and what hasn’t across the country. Then, we’ll create a practical guide for leaders to advance incentives and investments in their individual states.

And we need your help! If your nursing home has conducted a renovation in the past 10 years—however big or small, whatever barriers you’ve faced—we want to know about it. Please take just two minutes to complete these five multiple-choice questions, and let us know if we can reach out to schedule a longer conversation. Your experience will help us make the case to state and federal leaders that real investment in our nation’s nursing homes is necessary. 

Complete the 5 question survey here: https://forms.gle/eMjtrRovw2BwPFRK6.

Isaac Longobardi is director of the Moving Forward Coalition. Charles Sabatino is a prominent elder law expert and was the long-time director of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging.