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LTC Bullet:
Nursing Homes Suffer When Medicaid
Pays
Tuesday December 7, 1999
Seattle-
Friday's (12/3/99) Boston Globe reported that Maine nursing
homes are struggling to hire and retain quality staff because
of insufficient Medicaid reimbursement. In fact, this is a national
problem which will only get worse until nursing homes redouble
their efforts to embrace and promote private financing alternatives
such as long-term care insurance that pay nursing homes enough
money to attract and retain high quality staff.
According to the article titled, "Nursing Homes Face Growing
Staffing and Funding Crisis," Maine health care officials
and nursing home workers are complaining that "patients are
getting sicker in Maine's nursing homes and fewer staffers are
around to help them." To what effect? Lou Dorogi, who oversees
nursing home licensing for Maine's Department of Human Services
(DHS), suggests in the article that patient injuries are rising
because of insufficient staff.
In fact, low pay has created a veritable revolving door of
employment in Maine nursing homes. "Hilton Power of Brunswick
[Maine], a volunteer under the DHS ombudsman program who inspects
nursing homes, said the industry has 'burned up workers like cordwood
in a bad winter...using a forest of unskilled workers willing
to work for peanuts in the most dangerous industry.''' Power
said the industry's annual turnover rate of 80 percent would put
firms in any other industry out of business.
Further, "Paula Valente, chief executive officer of the
Maine Health Care Association, said 40 percent of the state's
120 homes are technically insolvent because Medicaid, which covers
up to 75 percent of nursing home patients, reimburses at 1993
levels. 'This is not greedy nursing home owners putting the money
in their pocket,' she said. Nursing homes 'are making every effort
to face the staffing problem. But its a Catch-22 problem if you
don't get reimbursed.'"
Source: "Nursing Homes Face Growing Staffing and Funding
Crisis," Boston Globe, December 3, 1999 at www.boston.com/dailynews/337/region/Nursing_homes_face_growing_sta:.shtml
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