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Minnesota’s Assisted Living Report Card is designed to help consumers make informed decisions when choosing an assisted living community. The online tool provides quality ratings for individual assisted living settings across several key categories, including resident quality of life, family satisfaction, resident health, safety, and staffing.

Legislators need to hear directly from long-term care providers and Day at the Capitol is your opportunity to make that happen.

On January 28, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued Quality, Safety, and Oversight memo QSO-26-01, revising the criteria used to select nursing homes for the Special Focus Facility (SFF) program. This update carries meaningful implications for all member facilities, and we want to make sure you understand what changed and what steps you should be taking now.

The 2025 Legislature created a new rate exception program under Elderly Waiver (EW) to help hospitals discharge high need residents to assisted living and other EW settings. The new program allows for rates that would otherwise exceed the EW budget caps.

A longtime LeadingAge Minnesota member organization is celebrating a milestone year as its founder receives statewide recognition for leadership in aging services and health care. Dr. Mary Tjosvold, founder and CEO of The Mary T Family of Companies, is being honored by three Minnesota business publications as the organization marks its 50th anniversary in 2026. Congratulations, Mary T and companies!

On February 10, 2026, LeadingAge Minnesota proudly honored the very best of aging services at our annual Stars Among Us Awards Banquet. For more than 35 years, our Stars Among Us Awards have recognized the individuals and organizations whose leadership, compassion, innovation, and dedication elevate the lives of older adults across Minnesota.

On February 11, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard oral arguments in the matter of the legal action that LeadingAge Minnesota, along with our partner in the Long-Term Care Imperative (LTCI), filed in late 2024 challenging the Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board (NHWSB) and the Holiday Pay Rule.

Beginning April 1, this 10-day interactive program is designed specifically for administrators, site leaders, and operational staff in assisted living and care center communities to build essential knowledge and practical skills to manage operations effectively. 

Benedictine has welcomed Mother of Mercy Senior Living, 230 Church Avenue, Albany, Minn., to its family of senior living communities.

Adult Day Services providers have an important revalidation step to complete in 2026. Last month, high-risk providers, including Adult Day Services, were informed they must complete an off-cycle revalidation by May 31, 2026.

On January 23, 2026, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) posted a press release directing federally-assisted housing providers to immediately “audit” tenant eligibility based on immigration status.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a final rule updating its civil monetary penalty (CMP) amounts to reflect inflation, under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015. This change ensures that penalties retain their deterrent effect by adjusting them annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Project Firstline offered a webinar on Tuesday focused on preventing and responding to respiratory infections and outbreaks in long-term care. During the webinar they covered approaches to recognizing illness early, testing, treatment, vaccination, and infection prevention and control (IPC).

As communities across Minnesota respond to increased immigration enforcement activity and related events, many organizations are navigating heightened concern, questions, and uncertainty. To support members during this time, LeadingAge Minnesota has developed and compiled a set of resources designed to help organizations prepare, respond thoughtfully, and communicate with care.

For years, skilled nursing facilities (SNF) operated in a system where data submitted through the Minimum Data Set (MDS) was largely accepted at face value. Facilities reported, measures were calculated, and reimbursement and public reporting followed. That is ending.

New and emerging nurse leaders in skilled nursing care centers, assisted living, or home care settings will gain a solid understanding of the foundational elements that make up the nurse leader’s role by attending LeadingAge Minnesota’s Nurse Leadership Program.

We hope you get to meet Kelly at LeadingAge Minnesota’s 2026 Institute next month! In the meantime, here are five things to know about our new director of assisted living services:

DHS announced this week that, in addition to the provider enrollment freeze for what they have deemed 13 high-risk categories, all claims submitted for services within these categories will be suspended pending pre-payment review. DHS also confirmed high-risk providers will be subject to an off-cycle revalidation process.

Vista Prairie Communities is pleased to announce the promotion of Lacie Lampman to Executive Director of Vista Prairie at Ridgeway.

Is this your year to secure new grant funding? We’ve just updated our members-only Grant Grid with five new funding opportunities and now is a great time to take a look.

Yesterday, Jan. 14, the U.S. State Department announced a pause on immigrant visa processing for applicants from 75 countries, a change that may affect some employment-based green card cases used by long-term care providers to recruit international health care professionals. The pause is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 21.

CMS has recently moved nursing home survey and certification data into its new cloud-based system, iQIES (Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System). While this modernization is intended to improve data quality and reliability, the transition has resulted in data discrepancies that may be visible on Nursing Home Care Compare.

Late last year, health insurer UCARE announced that due to mounting financial losses they would be shutting down operations.  They are now officially in court ordered “rehabilitation” which has put MDH in charge of all UCARE operations.

As the state continues to battle both substantiated and alleged claims of Medicaid fraud, DHS has announced a freeze on new provider enrollments in 13 categories of Medicaid-funded services as part of efforts to strengthen program integrity and address Medicaid fraud.

Due to IT issues at DHS, the annual nursing home cost report for the report year ending September 30, 2025, is not yet available on the Nursing Facility Provider Portal. Given that the due date of February 1 is coming up, DHS is implementing an alternative process for collecting the data this year.

In 2024, Vista Prairie Communities expanded the use of the Minnesota Resident Quality of Life and Family Satisfaction Surveys to three of their assisted living communities in Wisconsin and Iowa in partnership with Vital Research.

DHS this week provided updates regarding claims processing related to their November announcement of the State contracting with Optum, a third-party vendor, to conduct prepayment reviews of the 14 high-risk Medicaid services named in the executive order issued by Governor Walz.

As communities across Minnesota respond to increased immigration enforcement activity and related events, many organizations are navigating heightened concern, questions, and uncertainty. To support members, LeadingAge Minnesota is sharing communication templates designed to help organizations respond thoughtfully and compassionately.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has announced the upcoming launch of the Assisted Living Competitive Grant Program, established under new legislation effective Jan. 1, 2026 (see Minnesota Statutes, section 144G.31). This program supports projects and initiatives that improve resident quality of care and outcomes in assisted living settings licensed under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 144G, or organizations with experience in assisted living operations, compliance, resident needs, or best practices.

Some members are navigating increased questions related to immigration enforcement activity reported in communities across the state—including both metro and greater Minnesota communities with higher concentrations of immigrant populations. While LeadingAge Minnesota is currently not aware of any senior living or long-term care facilities with reported ICE raids, we also know that some employers are seeing related activity—document requests or staff concerns stemming from encounters outside of work—and are seeking ways to respond proactively and compassionately.