Senior Care Stock Tracking

Seniors and their families quickly learn that Medicare does not pay for long-term care in a nursing home nor in the home.

Medicare does pay for short-term rehabilitation in a nursing home, with medical doctor approval. Medicaid will pay for a nursing home but only for low-income seniors who usually can have no more than $2,000 in assets (learn more about the details of Medicaid qualification on our "By-state Information" pages).

One way to really learn about the costs of senior care is to review the information provided by public companies and to track their performance. Medicare and Medicaid have set reimbursement amounts for nursing home care, skilled home care and medical equipment.

Caregiverlist's Care Company Stock Watchlist

Caregiverlist does not at all recommend stocks or suggest investments, but because we are asked about the costs of senior care and provide quality standards for senior home care agencies, we think one way to keep an eye on care costs is to follow public companies who are providing senior care services. This way you can see all the additional expenses required for companies to provide care services along with government reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid.

Brookdale Senior Living: They have a nice high-rise retirement community down the street from us and are friendly neighbors (see - we are serious when we say we do not recommend stocks), and as they also have many locations nationwide, they are worth watching as an indicator of industry trends.

Emeritus: They are also a large company, with assisted living and continuing care residences located in 28 states and they provide everything from memory care to short-term respite care services.

Gentiva: This company provides skilled home care services for seniors, which is paid for by Medicare (For Medicare qualification, "skilled" means Registered Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist, Physical Therapist), giving us a snapshot of the need for intermittent skilled care in the home and the amount of this cost to Medicare.

Odyssey Healthcare: Provider of hospice care which is also covered by Medicare. Many people start hospice care services too late but terminal seniors can qualify for services when given 2-years to live and hospice services are growing as more people are learning about the value of this benefit.

ResCare: This company provides non-medical home care services for seniors, and they are a very active acquirer of senior home care agencies (and were interested in our founder's home care agency which was sold to a different national company).

Sunrise: This company has been a leader in providing nursing communities with innovative care programs for senior's with memory loss and in providing quality training for their staff, inspiring other companies to copy many of their programs. However, they had some funk with their accounting awhile back, which has led to other corporate issues but we give them credit for starting some new trends in the industry and are worth watching as they also are a very large company with locations nationwide.

Senior Resources by State