Advertisement
The law is intended to keep nursing home operators from “playing both sides” by billing Medicaid extra for high-need residents without funding adequate staffing to provide the necessary level of care for those residents, Pritzker said. And for the first time, long-term care facilities will have to publicly identify their owners, who are often hidden by complex corporate structures.
Under the new law, the state will increase its $2.5 billion in annual nursing home funding by roughly $700 million, with $100 million coming from the state’s general revenue fund and the rest from federal Medicaid and local nursing home assessments that by law are not supposed to be passed on to residents. The funding pays for the care of about 70% of the state’s 45,000 residents in skilled nursing facilities.
Increasing staffing or stuffing? He's huge