The COVID-19 pandemic and measures intended to prevent its spread could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly and adversely impacted, and may continue to impact SNFs and long-term care providers due to higher rates of virus transmission and fatality among the elderly and frail populations these facilities serve. As a result, many of our operators have been, and may continue to be, significantly impacted by the pandemic. See Item 2 – Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Overview. During the nine months ended September 30, 2021, three of our operators (one during the quarter ended September 30, 2021) have either missed contractual payments for a period or have informed us that they would be unable to pay us rent for the foreseeable future. We also placed four operators, including two of the non-paying operators, on a cash basis of revenue recognition during the nine months ended September 30, 2021, as collection of substantially all contractual lease payments with these four operators was no longer probable. We believe these operators were impacted by, among other things, reduced revenue as a result of lower occupancy and increased expenses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as uncertainties regarding the availability of sufficient government support. In connection with these developments, we have written off approximately $20.8 million in aggregate of straight-line receivables to rental income for the nine month period ended September 30, 2021, and taken impairments of $16.7 million for the same period in connection with loans outstanding with one of these operators. These operators collectively represent 7.6% and 9.3% of our total revenue, respectively, for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 (excluding the impact of write-offs in 2021 and 2020).
Continued uncertainty exists relating to our other operators’ ability to meet their payments obligations generally or meet their payment obligations to us, including due to continued uncertainty regarding the availability of sufficient government support, the persistence of staffing shortages that have impacted, and may continue to impact, our operators’ occupancy levels and profitability, the impact of governmental vaccine mandates for staff on ongoing staffing shortages, and other factors that may impact virus transmission in our facilities, as well as the commencement in April 2021 for many of our operators of the repayment of accelerated payments of Medicare funds that were previously received as Advanced Medicare payments in 2020, and the expected commencement in December 2021 of repayment of deferred FICA obligations. To the extent our operators are unable to meet their payment obligations, we may record additional impairment charges with respect to straight-line rent receivables associated with any such operator or with respect to outstanding loans and our financial condition could be adversely impacted. See “Our assets, including our real estate and loans, are subject to impairment charges, and our valuation and reserve estimates are based on assumptions and may be subject to adjustment” in Item 1A contained in Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020.
Our operators have been, and continue to be, impacted by the pandemic in numerous ways. In addition to experiencing outbreaks of positive cases and deaths of residents and employees during the pandemic, our operators have been required to, and continue to, adapt their operations rapidly throughout the pandemic to manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus as well as the implementation of new treatments and vaccines, and to implement new requirements relating to infection control, staffing levels, PPE, quality of care, visitation protocols, and reporting, among other regulations, throughout the pandemic while facing staffing shortages that have accelerated during from the pandemic and that may impede the delivery of care. The federal government announced in August and September 2021 that it would be requiring SNF and health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and has issued an emergency implementing regulation effective November 5, 2021 requiring covered health care facilities to ensure eligible staff have received a first vaccine dose as of December 5, 2021 and a second dose of a two-dose vaccine as of January 4, 2022, with certain permitted exemptions in alignment with federal law. Significant uncertainty remains regarding the potential impact such mandates may have on ongoing staffing shortages in our facilities, which have caused some operators to limit admissions. In addition, it remains uncertain when and to what extent vaccination programs for COVID-19, which have been implemented in most of our facilities, will continue to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in our facilities, or how effective existing vaccines and booster doses will be against the variants of the COVID-19 virus; the impact of these programs will depend in part on the continued speed, distribution, efficacy and delivery of the vaccine and booster doses in our facilities, compliance with staff vaccination requirements as well as participation levels in vaccination programs among the residents and employees of our operators. Our operators have continued to report considerable variation in participation levels among both employees and residents, which we believe may change over time with additional vaccination education efforts for residents and implementation of vaccine mandates for staff.