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Commissioner T.C. Rogers said the former administrator felt he could repay the loans but the nursing home can’t cover its debt, at least not for the foreseeable future.
“When we found out with the new administrator is that the numbers were not the same as we had when we made the loan, we saw there wasn’t going to be an actual repayment within a reasonable time, we felt as the responsibility is ours we might as well pay it…,” Rogers said “The previous administrator came to us and he said we can pay it back based on the numbers he was coming up with. Well, those weren’t the right numbers.”
At one point the Care Facility owed the county general fund $1.1 million and of that, $372,000 was repaid.
County Administrator Charlie Young said having the debt on the facility’s books also hampers its ability to make much needed upgrades to the aging facility.
There are workers swarming the facility now, painting, installing flooring, lights and ceiling panels, renovating one of the basement rooms for physical therapy and other projects to spruce up the once dark and dreary interior. A roof and chiller have been installed and replacement parking lot, fencing and landscaping are scheduled.
The commissioners agreed to defer Community Development Block Grant monies earmarked for a $260,000 paving project at the airport, for the larger capital projects at the home. The new roof cost $151,900 and the chiller was about $73,000. Maintenance crews for the most part have doing the sprucing up work at the home.
Care Facility Administrator Jennifer Strickland said all these improvements will hopefully entice more paying customers to the home. One of their goals is to market their physical therapy services to a larger population.
The 109-bed facility is one of 31 county-run nursing homes in Ohio. The nursing homes were mandated in all 88 counties when the first facility was built in 1830 to serve the infirm, poor and homeless. Many of the facilities closed after the state legislature lifted the mandate and counties opted to let the private sector handle nursing care as government budgets shrank.
MORE: County home making financial, aesthetic improvements
Part of the financial challenges the facility has faced are due to Medicaid reimbursements. Now they have something called “PointClickCare” software so everything is done electronically, which will help, according to Strickland.
The most recent $275,000 general fund transfer was due in part to a Medicaid audit. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid started doing audits of payments made to nursing homes from previous years. If a facility can’t for some reason provide adequate documentation for a particular reimbursement, the government asks for the money back.
Strickland said they are going through about $114,000 worth of services the home provided, that Medicaid is now questioning.
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