TARIFFS

No word yet on healthcare carveouts

Tariffs could raise costs for nursing homes, further degrading margins and increasing financial pressure on American nursing homes. Despite a 30-day reprieve as of February 3, 2025 with Mexico and Canada, uncertainty still lingers.

While many companies pass increased costs on to consumers, skilled nursing providers are largely blocked from doing so since their key payers — Medicaid and Medicare — offer rates set by the federal government months ago.

Georgia long-term care providers are welcoming proposed tort reform legislation that would add significant revisions to how they could be held responsible for certain injuries that occur on their properties.

The proposal would limit premises liability claims and would outline when companies can be sued for certain injuries that occur on their properties. It also would add further stipulations to how damages are determined in personal injury cases, requiring plaintiffs to show jurors their true medical costs as opposed to initial, often inflated bills.

Last year, the American Tort Reform Association named Georgia its top “Judicial Hellhole” after a series of “nuclear verdicts,” or damages awards surpassing $10 million.

“Policymakers can adopt reforms to prohibit manipulative courtroom tactics, curb forum shopping, and ensure damages are fair and proportionate,” the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform wrote in a July blog post.

DEFENSE STRATEGY

Anchoring damages through early case evaluation

Corporations, including those in the aging services industry, are seeing an increase in aberration verdicts.  A recent report revealed the median nuclear verdict, or those greater than $10 million against corporate defendants, rose from $21.5 million in 2020 to $41.1 million in 2022.  Senior living facilities must employ defense strategies to combat this trend and preserve resources to support their core mission of high-quality care and services for residents.

A driving factor of these verdicts is the “lottery money effect,” whereby jurors have become desensitized to massive dollar awards as a result of trillion-dollar government programs, billion-dollar lottery jackpots, and exorbitant sports salaries.  Further, there is evidence that jurors’ distrust big corporations and their lawyers, feel that “the system is rigged,” and accept arguments by plaintiffs’ counsel that corporate defendants prioritize “profits over people.”  Focus groups have revealed that people think healthcare providers profited greatly through COVID-19.  This desensitization to dollar amounts, along with general distrust, is also referred to as “social inflation.”

These aberration verdicts, which are beyond rational damage estimates, are based more on emotion and perceived credibility and less on facts, law, common sense, and expert opinions. 

EXCELAS PERFORMANCE METRICS

Excelas helps organizations respond accurately and quickly to claims and litigation brought against them

Partnering with attorneys, health care organizations, and insurance companies since 1995, Excelas provides medical legal analyses and tools for building winning defense strategies. When expertise, accuracy, reliability, and on-time delivery count, you can count on Excelas.

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