Leaders of the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and Department of Health have called on state lawmakers to pump $7.5 million more for nursing home funding into the governor’s proposed budget.
Of the requested amount, $2 million would be used to purchase new equipment and bedding in state-run veterans’ nursing homes that are scheduled to begin significant renovations to implement more private, single-occupant rooms.
The remaining $5.5 million would be used by the Department of Health to create long-term care crisis operations and infection control teams, as well as an emergency fund to provide temporary assistance to struggling private nursing homes.
The funding requests come on the heels of reports that showed just how devastating the effects of COVID-19 were on the state’s nursing homes. While New Jersey handled the later stages of the pandemic well, its nursing homes had the second-highest rate of resident deaths due to COVID in the first surge.
Due to concerns that shared rooms exacerbated the transmission of COVID-19 during the pandemic, veterans’ homes are already planning to upgrade to private rooms and create wings reserved for patients with infectious diseases. More than $20 million in state money has been earmarked for that project, with requests for another $40 million of federal funding in the works.
New Jersey, however, has provided no aid for private facilities that might want to make the same upgrades, according to Andy Aronson, president and CEO of the Health Care Association of New Jersey.
“The state provides no incentives for a nursing home to maintain private rooms,” Aronson told McKnight’s. “Nursing homes would welcome additional financial investments by the state into the nursing home industry so that more private rooms could be created.”
Providers request systemic changes
Other states have experimented with adding extra reimbursement funding for residents in private rooms to incentivize nursing homes to operate with more of them.
While providers might cheer on any advocacy for more nursing home funding, the overall impact of the proposed budget appears to be lacking, Aronson said.
“The best way for the state to support the nursing home industry would be to establish and fund a fair Medicaid payment system,” he argued. “We have now seen three reports… identify the State’s Medicaid payment system as a problem and recommend that it be fixed. Those recommendations have not been implemented.”
Aronson called a planned $7 million increase in Medicaid reimbursement funding “woefully inadequate.”
Leadership of the nonprofit nursing home organization LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware praised officials for the proposed additional funding, but also shared concerns about the state of nursing home funding in general.
“Converting semi-private rooms to private rooms will reduce the spread of infection,” said Jim McCracken, president and CEO of LeadingAge NJDE. “Quality of life could also be improved with increased government funding. Currently, Medicaid reimbursement does not cover the cost of providing care to these vulnerable elders. LeadingAge NJ & DE is advocating for an additional allocation in the budget…. The governor’s proposal of $7.1 million isn’t sufficient.”
Changes to the proposed state budget are likely to continue leading up to the July 1 deadline.
