You may remember the stories we brought you last year about the struggles of Illinois nursing homes, as they dealt with delayed payments from the state.
That cycle of delayed payments is still plaguing area homes...and is to blame for another nursing home closure.
Modern Care Nursing and Rehab Center in Jacksonville is closing its doors in 90 days because of financial difficulties related to delayed state aid payments.
According to nursing home administrators we talked to, Illinois is about three and a half months behind cutting checks.
As KHQA's Melissa Shriver shows you in this KHQA FactFinder report, delayed payments are stretching what is already a tight budget for nursing homes.
Nursing homes like Good Samaritan Home in Quincy are in a tight place right now.
Judy Graham is the Associate Administrator here. She says the state is about 3 and a half months behind in medicaid reimbursements and that's putting the hurt on homes.
What are Nursing homes going through right now?
Graham said, "Basically the state is having cash flow problems that gets passed onto providers because then the providers don't receive checks on a timely basis yet they still have to pay vendors and they still have to pay staff who are working there and they have to come up with other ways to pay those bills."
Some nursing homes have to borrow money to pay their bills. Good Samaritan home is one of the lucky ones. Private and community donations to the home make the burden lighter. But for those homes without the cushion, times are hard.
But tardy checks aren't the problems homes face.
"The reimbursement is just not adequate to cover the true cost of care for residents on public assistance."
Here's an example. The state pays 35 percent less or 1500 less per resident every month than it costs to provide care to them. Out of 169 residents at Good Samaritan Home....a third or 55 of them are on public aid. I did the math. That means Good Sam loses more than 82 thousand dollars every month from services the state doesn't reimburse.
Think about this...the low reimbursements are also not going up with the rising costs of doing business. Like all of us...nursing homes are paying more for food, health insurance for employees...and the big one gas and electricity. Good Samaritan home's utility bill went up 75 percent when the rate increase took effect.
Graham says Good Samaritan will continue its mission in helping everyone...no matter their ability to pay. But she says hopefully something will be done so other homes won't be stretched so thin in serving seniors.
