A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) investigates changes in ownership within nursing homes in the United States between 2016 and 2019 and their potential impact on short-stay Medicare patient outcomes. The key findings of the study suggest that SNFs with characteristics historically associated with lower quality, such as for-profit status and lower staffing ratings, were more likely to undergo changes in ownership. However, these ownership changes were not significantly associated with differences in most short-stay patient outcomes. The study concludes that changes in ownership may be a symptom, rather than a cause, of lower quality for short-stay patients in SNFs.