Nursing home and skilled nursing providers could lose a combined $67 billion in annual revenue if a “simple” cure for Alzheimer’s disease is found quickly, one researcher believes.
Nursing homes are estimated to lose $51 billion in annual revenue, while SNFs are projected to lose $16 billion, according to an analysis that researched the economic side effects of a “sudden arrival of an (Alzheimer’s disease) curative or preventative.”
“In addition to the financial impact on these businesses, employee jobs would be sliced, with a projected 654,000 potential layoffs across all LTC constituents,” wrote Leslie Norins, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Alzheimer’s Germ Quest, a “public benefit” corporation formed in Florida in 2017. The corporation works to accelerate research on possible infectious causes of Alzheimer’s disease.
Norins’ evaluated the hypothesis using two assumptions: The cure is easy and convenient to administer and it works quickly to halt or reverse the disease on an outpatient basis. He then used public data on Alzheimer’s disease, along with Medicare and Medicaid spending statistics on the illness, to make the estimates.
Assisted living communities would see a loss of $16.3 billion in annual revenues, he said.
The research also estimates a cure could negatively impact Social Security and pension payments, research funding and advocacy groups. Norins also noted, however, that a cure would help lower healthcare costs for Alzheimer’s disease patients.
“Nobody knows the exact number of beds a simple Alzheimer’s cure would empty, but we can say the loss of revenue and jobs will be gigantic, and create a major financial hit to the paid care industry. It’s time business and government stakeholders prepared contingency plans,” Norins said.
The analysis was published Saturday in Medical Hypotheses, a peer-reviewed medical journal.
