This is not a niche shift. It’s structural—driven by demographics, value-based economics, workforce constraints, and how patients move across the continuum of care, from hospital discharge to post-acute recovery, longitudinal management, and aging-in-place.
Care delivery continues to migrate beyond hospital walls. Outpatient and post-acute volumes are projected to grow faster than inpatient care through 2035, with outpatient volumes rising ~18% and home-based services ~32%. Ambulatory surgery centers, physician-led outpatient care, home health, and senior care settings are absorbing a growing share of procedural, recovery, and longitudinal care. McKinsey & Company highlights home health and hospice as core growth segments, while noting margin and utilization pressure across institutional settings—including skilled nursing—without stronger integration across the continuum.
Policy and payment models reinforce this direction. Programs such as iSNPs, PACE, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services GUIDE model prioritize coordinated, longitudinal, non-acute care for high-need populations, rewarding continuity, risk management, and care delivered closer to where people live.
For LTC-100 leaders, this is already operational reality. Skilled nursing facilities are caring for higher-acuity patients discharged earlier from hospitals, while senior living and assisted living communities support residents with chronic, complex needs once managed in institutional settings. SNFs and senior living providers now sit at the fulcrum of the continuum—balancing acute discharge, post-acute recovery, longitudinal care, and aging-in-place.
The 65+ population is expanding, chronic disease prevalence is rising, outpatient surgical volumes are projected to grow ~20%, and value-based reimbursement rewards site neutrality and coordinated transitions—placing skilled nursing and senior living squarely in the value equation.
Executive takeaway: As acute-care pressures persist—margin compression, workforce shortages, capacity constraints—the non-acute continuum has become the growth frontier of healthcare. Skilled nursing, senior living, assisted living, and home-based care are no longer downstream recipients of acute decisions; they are central to outcomes, economics, and patient experience. The organizations that win the next decade will design for continuity over time—across the entire care journey.
Sources: McKinsey & Company; EY; American Hospital Association; CMS innovation and care model guidance.