Advocates for aging Virginians are praising the passage of legislation during the 2026 session. But they fear budget cuts could harm their members.
“It’s a major impact on quality of care when you have a change in ownership,” said Dana Parsons with LeadingAge Virginia, an advocacy group for aging Virginians, speaking to what she called the existing trend of rapid transfers of ownership in Virginia’s nursing home industry.
But new legislation waiting for action by Governor Abigail Spanberger will require nursing home ownership transfers to be reviewed by the Virginia Department of Health. A change Parsons welcomed.
“I’m hoping the results of this will be enhanced resident safety, accountability, transparency, and just really improving the quality of care overall,” she told Radio IQ.
Two matching bills were carried by Senator Barbara Favola and Delegate Rodney Willet. They sailed through both chambers with unanimous support. Willet said the effort was inspired by recent complaints about nursing homes around central Virginia and worries about the increasing ownership of facilities by cost-cutting venture capital firms.
“Whoever it is, whether they’re a venture capital firm or any other firm who’s coming into Virginia," Willet told Radio IQ. "Just to make sure who they are, where they’ve been and making sure, they’ve done a good job in operating other facilities.”
The change was also welcomed by industry members, including Amy Hewett with the Virginia Healthcare Association.
“It closes a critical gap in resident protections by strengthening oversight during nursing home operator transition,” Hewett said Wednesday.
Spanberger has till April 13th to sign the measures.
But Parsons requests for 2026 also included funding for new nurse training, more funds for Area agencies on aging and a long-term care ombudsman. None of the requests were included in the budgets submitted during session, but advocates hope the extra time granted by the impasse on the 2026 budget may make room for their needs.
“We are still advocating that those be in the final budget,” Parsons said.
Willet, meanwhile, said cuts at the federal level, and new spending to make up for those cuts, is leading to a leaner budget than anyone would like.
"It's feeding people, its insuring people, we'll have to do that." Willet said of federal cuts. "It's not 100 million dollars; it's a billion dollars. The numbers are daunting."
The Henrico official pointed to another effort Parsons supported, one that would have set new standards for nursing home employees.
"There was some question as to whether we could afford it," Willet said, noting it was his own legislation, but it was instead turned into a study.
As for Parson's hopes?
"We'll still get a lot done," Willet said, optimistically.
A special session to wrap up Virginia’s budget is set for late April.
