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Senior Living & Long-Term Care

By identifying strategic solutions to improve resident and associate safety, our specialists help to lower the total cost of risk for senior living and long-term care providers.
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The senior living and long-term care industries contains many types of businesses, including independent living, assisted living, memory care, continuing care retirement communities, life plan communities and skilled nursing facilities.

Falls with injury are the most common clinical risk and claims exposure. As a result, a comprehensive falls management program is an important priority. Such a program includes support from all levels of the organization, along with well-developed systems, staff training, and ongoing monitoring and evaluating of the effectiveness of the program.

In addition, a robust incident reporting and investigation process is of utmost importance to identify opportunities for improving resident quality and safety, early identification of claims, and timely reporting of claims for applicable coverages.

Marsh’s team of clinical risk consultants and claim consultants can help identify areas of opportunity for your company’s falls management program and incident reporting and investigation processes.

Some of the top risk issues for owners and operators currently include:

  • Financial and operational constraints: The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased costs, with senior living and long-term care owners and operators around the US spending billions of dollars to purchase personal protective equipment, provide additional sick leave pay for employees, and even invest in structural changes to protect residents and associates. At the same time, occupancy dropped.
  • Ongoing workforce challenges: Difficulty to recruit, train, and retain suitably qualified talent has long been a pressing challenge for an industry with a high employee turnover rate. Although this challenge predates the pandemic, it has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 public health crisis. Because the acuity of residents is increasing and medical needs are shifting, senior living and long-term care providers are in need of highly qualified and better trained staff more than ever to provide needed services.
  • Changing regulatory and litigation environment: Senior living and long-term care providers have faced intense scrutiny from government regulators over the years. After the start of the pandemic, this focus on the industry has only grown stronger from both a state and now federal standpoint. Along with changes in regulations and oversight, the industry faces ongoing increased litigation challenges, including novel theories of liability with class action and consumerism claims.
  • Cybersecurity risks: This industry’s growing use of technology to improve business operations and respond to resident expectations is also increasing the risk of disruption from cyber events. Having a robust information and data security program to safeguard data, preserve connectivity, and respond quickly to a cyberattack is critical not just today, but also in the future.

These are just a few of the risks facing the senior living and long-term care industry. Marsh’s Senior Living & LTC Industry Practice specialists have the experience and tools to help you identify, analyze and mitigate these risks through an insurance and risk management program tailored to your specific needs.

Strain and sprain injuries associated with resident mobility assistance are oftentimes the most frequent and severe injuries to senor living and long-term care staff. The most effective way to prevent these injuries is through a safe resident mobility assistance program that incorporates:

  • Support from all levels of the organization
  • Written policy and procedure
  • Equipment selection
  • Staff training
  • Skills validation
  • Periodic observation

Marsh’s team of risk consultants can help identify areas of opportunity for your company’s safe resident mobility assistance program.

Although senior living and long-term care providers will need property and general liability insurance similar to businesses in other industries, they will also need professional liability coverage to help protect from financial risk associated with resident injury.

Organizations should assess their unique exposures and vulnerabilities to design an insurance program, in consultation with their broker, that effectively helps reduce and manage risk. Additional coverages could include directors and officers (D&O), employment practices liability, and cyber, just to name a few.

In addition to exclusive capacity, Marsh offers insurance programs that include proprietary solutions for difficult coverage issues, such as punitive damages, sexual abuse and molestation, class action lawsuits and lender compliance retention issues.

Many industry associations provide education and training on state and federal regulations. Some of the most prominent organizations are Argentum, American Senior Housing Association (ASHA), AHCA/NCAL, and LeadingAge.

Marsh works closely with these industry organizations, as well as their state counterparts, to assist in developing benchmarks, solutions, presentations and training for industry members. We work with these organizations to help the industry understand claim trends, liability gaps, and other risk management issues.

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