State Offers Medicaid Funding to Nursing Homes for Private Rooms

By Amy Stulick

Nursing homes in Ohio will soon receive financial incentives for each additional private room they offer, thanks to a proposal recently greenlit by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The initiative, set to launch in the coming months, was developed by the Ohio Department of Medicaid and revises the reimbursement structure for Medicaid-funded nursing home rooms, according to a report from the Scioto Valley Guardian. It’s a significant step toward the state’s goal of offering a private room option to every nursing home resident.

Operators that decide to convert multi-resident rooms into private spaces, or add private rooms through new construction projects will receive additional Medicaid funding. If facilities offer private rooms with private bathrooms, they’ll receive $30 more per day while those with shared bathrooms will receive $20 more per day.

There has been movement toward private rooms at the national level as well, with the Biden Administration’s reform initiatives including a call for reduced room crowding in nursing homes. But, there hasn’t been much discussion around this aspect of the reform since it was unveiled in 2022.

Other states like Massachusetts already have mandated initiatives to de-densify nursing home rooms, offering bed buyback programs to help supplement the cost, but it wasn’t significant enough to offset financial losses. Thirty-one providers in Massachusetts last year ended up filing a lawsuit against the mandate, halting its enforcement, according to a report from Becker’s Healthcare.

The private room initiative is the latest in efforts to make significant investments and implement policy reform to improve care standards and quality of life, the Scioto Valley report found, supported by the Ohio Nursing Home Quality & Accountability Task Force.

Prior to the private room funding, the state launched Ohio Nursing Home Quality Navigator, an online tool offering detailed information about its nursing homes. The site aims to strengthen resident advocacy and facility inspections. 

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State Offers Medicaid Funding to Nursing Homes for Private Rooms

List of troubled nursing homes across the country includes 17 in Indiana

By: Katie Cox

 

Photo by: CNN

 

INDIANAPOLIS — Three Indiana nursing homes are among the worst in the country and an additional 14 have serious quality and care issues significant enough to make them candidates for a federal monitoring program, according to a report released by two U.S. Senators earlier this week.

The report released by Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) on Monday includes more than 400 nursing homes across the country that are candidates for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Special Focus Facility Program (SFF).

The list is generally not made available to the public.

Three nursing homes in Indiana are already part of the SFF program, including Lawrence Manor Healthcare Center in Indianapolis, which has been working to improve for the past 17 months.

The other two already included on the list are:

• Vernon Health & Rehabilitation in Wabash – 13 months
• Aperion Care Arbors in Michigan City – 10 months

Once on the list, the nursing home operators are given 18 to 24 months to make recommended improvements and extensions can be granted. Failure to improve can jeopardize the nursing homes’ participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the funding that comes from them.

A nursing home is removed from the list once it has performed well in two consecutive inspections.

An additional 14 nursing homes in the state of Indiana are currently under observation that have a documented patter of poor care significant enough to make them candidates for the SFF federal monitoring program.

Those nursing homes include:

1. Essex Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
2. Signature Healthcare of Lafayette
3. Hanover Nursing Center
4. Aperion Care Valpraiso
5. SImmons Loving Care Health Facility
6. Life Care Center of Rochester
7. Signature Healthcare of Newburgh
8. Majestic Care of Fort Wayne
9. Raia'lins House of Health & Living Community
10. Aperion Care Peru
11. Majestic Care of Connersville
12. North Ridge Village Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
13. Golden LivingCenter - Elkhart
14. Aperion Care Tolleston Park

You can see the full list of troubled nursing homes across the country HERE.

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List of troubled nursing homes across the country includes 17 in Indiana