What Can We Learn From HCP?

chart01In 2015, HCP recorded a $1.3 billion impairment related to their HCR ManorCare investments. HCR ManorCare, their biggest tenant in the post-acute/skilled nursing segment, has experienced deteriorating operational performance due to changes in reimbursement rules. Also, the U.S. Department of Justice has sued HCR ManorCare on the grounds that they had filed claims to Medicare for services not needed by their patients.

Although the litigation is at an early stage, this is nonetheless a reminder to investors who invest in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) through healthcare REITs that their investments tend to be reliant on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. As a result, changes in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement can have enormous consequences for their investments, which can catch them by surprise.

How Can You Evaluate Healthcare REITs Investing in SNFs?

Before evaluating healthcare REITs that invest in SNFs, it is important to mention some of the background. In brief, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates tend to increase over time, as shown by how average Medicare reimbursement rates rose from $408 per day in 2008 to $484 per day in 2014 while average Medicaid reimbursement rates rose from $164 per day to $186 per day across the same period of time according to Eljay LLC and CMS. This means that SNFs possess potential in the long run, though the same cannot be said in all periods of time.

If you are interested in investing in SNFs through healthcare REITs, there are some simple ways to evaluate your potential investments:

* The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services post updates such as the payment rates for 2016, meaning that it can be worthwhile for investors to monitor their website. While its updates can have a wide range of effects on SNFs, most may not prove pleasing to investors because it has an unsurprising interest in ensuring that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are as low as possible.

* Some SNFs have slimmer margins than others, meaning that a negative occurrence can hurt them and thus their investors more than competitors. One way to avoid such SNFs is to examine their EBITDAR coverage ratio, which is their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and rent divided by rent costs. A higher coverage ratio means that a SNF is more resilient in the face of negative occurrences because it has the earnings needed to tough them out.

* Occupancy is a useful figure for telling whether a SNF will be profitable or not because each occupied unit is a unit that is earning revenue for the SNF. There is a problem in that the occupancy at which a SNF becomes profitable is not the same from SNF to SNF. However, it is very much possible to compare occupancy from year to year for the same SNF, meaning that a rising occupancy is a positive sign for its profitability.

* Finally, check whether a healthcare REIT has all of its investments in the same state or has taken the proper precautions by spreading them out. You should avoid healthcare REITs that cannot be bothered with diversification because a statewide change for the worse can hammer their figures, which is particularly problematic because state governments can have significant influence over Medicaid spending.

Source: HCP, Inc.(NYSE:HCP), Ventas, Inc.(NYSE:VTR), CMS



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