For-Profit Nursing Homes Had Less Severe Lockdowns, Lower Fatality Rates During Pandemic

Nursing homes operating as for-profit enterprises generally implemented less severe lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic than their nonprofit and government-run counterparts.

Doing so may have saved lives.

A working paper published Wednesday by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University finds that the number of visits to for-profit nursing homes declined less dramatically and rebounded more quickly than at other facilities with different management structures. Victor Melo, the paper’s author, argues that profit motive likely nudged managers at for-profit nursing homes to make decisions that better balanced the needs of staff and residents.

“Restrictive isolation measures present a trade-off for residents,” writes Melo. “These measures benefit residents by decreasing their chances of getting and dying from COVID-19. But they impose high costs on residents by preventing them from being with their families and friends, which negatively affects their mental health and can potentially expedite death from other causes.”

By comparison, he writes, nonprofit and government-run facilities may have been more likely to prioritize the interests of staff, for whom intensive lockdowns carried less of a cost since they could leave at the end of their shifts, go home, and see loved ones.

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