How Should We Determine the Optimal Physician-to-Resident Ratio in LTC Facilities?

​In a letter to the editor of JAMDA, the authors found that one physician can effectively care for 10 skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents plus 100 nursing facility (NF) residents; authors calculated the average amount of time it takes to complete clinical and administrative tasks such as admissions, discharges, and acute/regulatory visits per week. The authors acknowledge the difficulty in generalizing an ideal or desired physician-to-nursing home resident ratio, citing lengths of stay, higher patient acuity, pay for performance, and bundled payment trends as common influencers of care delivery. The author also notes that productivity and quality are closely tied and the available resources and priorities at individual facilities can vary widely.