A legitimate buyer just spent three years trying to take over a one-star New York nursing home with active fraud allegations against its current owner. In February, he walked away - citing shifting criteria, undue financial burden, and a regulatory process that broke his employee personally. The one-star operator is still there. The residents are still there. The state got exactly the opposite of what it wanted.
This is the CHOW crisis in a nutshell. States are adding more layers - longer timelines, more disclosure, attorney general approvals - to prevent bad actors. But the buyers who most want to fix broken facilities are often smaller operators without the war chests to survive 17-month approval processes. One operator calculated every month over his projected timeline cost his company $83,000 in interest. Three slow CHOWs.
Nearly $2 million. Gone. Not to care. To interest payments. The facilities that most need saving are becoming the hardest to save.
What are we going to do about this? Anyone?