An Ohio task force created to determine how to improve nursing homes must look at improving reimbursement rates and ensuring “adequate” funding, said the facility representatives on its board.
Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, said his organization proposed again late last year that 60% of any added funding that comes from rebasing skilled nursing facility rates in the state budget be put into quality incentive payments.
“I will make the point that quality depends on having adequate workforce, which requires adequate funding,” Van Runkle told McKnights Long Term Care News on Monday.
The state infused $615 million into nursing homes in December in what one lawmaker called a “whipsaw pace” of legislation to help the sector manage a “financial squeeze,” according to a Plain Dealer report. Forty percent of the funds were directed to nursing homes for direct care and other measures enshrined in state law; the remaining 60% was earmarked for quality-of-care incentives based on rates of residents experiencing pressure ulcers, urinary tract infections, losing mobility, and catheter insertions, the local report stated.
On Friday, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced the creation of the Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force, which will be chaired by Ursel J. McElroy, director of the Ohio Department of Aging. CMS ranks the state’s 960 skilled nursing facilities 39th in the nation on its overall Quality Star Ratings. Some 40% of the state’s facilities have seen a decline in their federal rating since 2018, DeWine said in a press release announcing the task force.
Susan Wallace, president and CEO of LeadingAge Ohio, told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News the state needs to significantly boost its Medicaid reimbursement rates and that securing that adequate payment is “the top priority.”
The accounting firm Plante Moran estimated that Ohio’s nursing homes lost $87.42 per day in 2021. Wallace said the 2022 cost reports have not yet been made available to determine how much the gap between actual care costs and the state’s reimbursement rate has grown.
The gap between the cost of care and Medicaid rates roughly doubled during the pandemic, Wallace said, and that has been “exacerbated” by the workforce crisis. Recent data from CliftonLarsonAllen shows that nearly half of nursing home residents live in a facility with a margin of negative-7.5% or less, Wallace said.
“This level of insecurity means that half of the 70,000 Ohioans residing in nursing facilities are at risk of losing their homes,” Wallace said.
Ten nursing homes closed in Ohio in 2022, and three more have shuttered so far this year, Van Runkle said.
