Business

Assisted-living homes are rejecting Medicaid and evicting seniors

Some residents who drained their nest eggs to cover private-pay rates have been evicted after turning to Medicaid to pay their bills.

By
April 6, 2023 at 7:06 a.m. EDT
Shirley Holtz paid private rates for 26 months at an assisted-living facility before qualifying for Medicaid. She lived there for another two years at the Medicaid rate before being evicted. (Family Photo)
11 min

Shirley Holtz, 91, used a walker to get around. She had dementia and was enrolled in hospice care. Despite her age and infirmity, Holtz was evicted from the assisted-living facility she called home for four years because she relied on government health insurance for low-income seniors.

Holtz was one of 15 residents told to vacate Emerald Bay Retirement Community near Green Bay, Wis., after the facility stopped accepting payment from a state-sponsored Medicaid program. And Emerald Bay is not alone. A recent spate of evictions has affected dozens of assisted-living residents in Wisconsin who depended on Medicaid to pay their bills — an increasingly common practice, according to industry representatives.