Lucio tours La Hacienda Healthcare
State representative addresses nurses' daily wages
HARLINGEN - For each patient on Medicaid at La Hacienda Healthcare, the
skilled-nursing facility receives $106 per day from the state.
The
problem is, that isn't enough to cover a nurse's daily wage, let alone
medications or room and board, administrators told Rep. Eddie Lucio III,
D-Brownsville, as he toured the facility Tuesday.
"We still have to
provide nursing care every hour, and their medications ... we really have to
micromanage our costs," administrator Ricardo Rodriguez said.
Facility
officials and representatives from the Texas Health Care Association, which
represents long-term care facilities, briefed Lucio on the financial troubles
Texas nursing homes are facing.
Rio Grande Valley nursing facilities,
like La Hacienda, have many Medicaid patients, but Medicaid reimbursements don't
adequately cover the cost of treating them, said Leticia Caballero, THCA
government-relations director.
According to THCA, Texas ranks 49th in the
country for Medicaid reimbursements to nursing homes. On average nationwide,
nursing homes receive about $154 daily per patient. In Texas, the average
reimbursement is $106 daily per patient.
"We're in a race to the bottom,"
Caballero said.
To keep their doors open, Texas nursing homes are trying
to bring in more Medicare patients because Medicare reimburses the facilities at
a much higher rate, Caballero said - $427 per patient, per day.
But that
rate only lasts for 100 days, and then the patient must go on Medicaid or pay
privately, Rodriguez said.
La Hacienda has an outpatient rehabilitation
gym and other activities to attract more Medicare patients, Rodriguez said.
"We have to look to federal (Medicare) funds to make up for poor state funding,"
he said.
In 2007, Texas Health and Human Services Commission requested a
$342 million increase in funding to close the Medicaid gap for nursing homes.
The agency received $99 million, Caballero said.
Lucio said he would push
for additional reimbursement funds for nursing homes in the 2009 legislative
session.