Under the nursing insurance system, intensive-care nursing homes for the elderly are accumulating large internal financial reserves. These facilities care for people aged 65 or older who have serious medical issues. Most of them are bedridden or suffer from senile dementia.
To dispel any suspicions about their operations, it will be important for these homes to introduce transparency to their operations by disclosing how they plan to use the internal reserves in their long-term operation plans.
According to a survey by the health and welfare ministry, one such home had internal reserves worth ¥313.73 million on average as of the end of March 2013. Total internal reserves at such homes nationwide amount to about ¥2 trillion.