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Quality care is at stake if long-term care providers place profits over nursing home care. And providers need to be accountable for that care, said Larry Minnix, president and CEO of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, at the association’s annual conference Monday.

“This is not the commodity business; it’s the human services business,” Minnix told members of the media at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, where the conference is being held. He was speaking in reference to a New York Times story published last month that exposed quality-of-care problems at facilities owned by private equity firms.

“This business is a very personal business. It does not lend itself to being owners from a great distance,” he said.

Minnix said that the report, which found that care deficiencies were higher at facilities owned by private equity firms, sheds light on the need for better government tracking of nursing care expenditures. AAHSA represents nonprofit, including faith-based, long-term care facilities.

Without such a study on these expenditures, there will be “continuing mistrust about the quality of delivery and where that money goes,” Minnix said.