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Long-Term Care Industry Says Quality Care Threatened
by Medicaid Cuts
American Health Care Association optimistic
Administration is hearing the plea
March 15, 2006 – National long-term care industry
leaders yesterday expressed concern about the squeeze on state Medicaid
budgets. Their message was targeting the Medicaid Advisory Commission,
which met yesterday in Atlanta to consider pending federal Medicaid
reform proposals.
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Senior Politics |
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Industry leaders say the growing disparity between
the rising cost of providing quality care and actual government
reimbursement levels threatens the ability to sustain nursing home care
quality gains.
Bruce Yarwood, President and CEO of the American
Health Care Association (AHCA), said there is some cause for optimism
that the Bush Administration is hearing the plea of the nation's
Governors when it comes to the growing squeeze on state Medicaid budgets
due to proposed federal cuts, and pointed out that National Governors'
Association (NGA) Chair Mike Huckabee (R-AR) believes headway is being
made on this front.
"The nation's governors just ended their annual
winter meeting in Washington saying they continue to have concerns about
elements of President Bush's budget that would shift more health care
costs to the states, but they also expressed confidence that headway is
being made in convincing the Administration to rethink proposals
affecting Medicaid payments," Yarwood said.
"We have worked successfully with this
Administration to help enhance the quality of America's nursing home
care, and we seek continued progress through the implementation of
rationale, fair policies that will facilitate continued progress."
Yarwood noted that the national accounting firm,
BDO Seidman, undertakes an annual study to measure the shortfall between
Medicaid reimbursement to nursing home providers and the state's
allowable nursing home costs.
The results from 2005, representing over 86 percent
of the Medicaid patient days nationwide, indicate the national average
shortfall in Medicaid reimbursement was $12.58 per Medicaid patient day
- meaning states pay providers $12.58 less than the actual daily cost of
providing quality care.
An update from BDO Seidman will be released later
in 2006.
AHCA supports broad-based reforms to the Medicaid
program, though it recommends that the commissioners fully investigate
the overall implications of reform.
"Current models, such as the one in place in
Oregon, have succeeded in greatly expanding the home and community based
services (HCBS) program, yet the reform has not had the desired effect
of lowering long term care costs for the state," stated Jim Carlson,
Executive Director of the Oregon Health Care Association.
"Consequently, there is now growing pressure on the
HCBS program to hold down its costs and Oregon continues to struggle
with mounting long term care costs. Therefore, we encourage the
Commission to investigate all potential outcomes of any new Medicaid
models in order to avoid such unintended consequences."
"As we are seeing federal efforts to significantly
reduce states' ability to utilize provider fees and inter-governmental
transfers as revenue sources, it is more important than ever for
transitional funding strategies to be pursued concurrent with the
development and implementation of broader Medicaid reforms," stated Fred
Watson, president of the Georgia Nursing Home Association.
"Reducing funding without identifying and allowing
the use of alternative revenue sources would undoubtedly harm Georgia's
most vulnerable, medically-fragile seniors in need of high quality
facility care."
The American Health Care Association and the
National Center for Assisted Living represent nearly 11,000 non-profit
and proprietary facilities dedicated to continuous improvement in the
delivery of professional and compassionate care provided daily by
millions of caring employees to more than 1.5 million of our nation's
frail, elderly and disabled citizens who live in nursing facilities,
assisted living residences, subacute centers and homes for persons with
mental retardation and developmental disabilities. For more information
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