Used to be hedge funds, now it's health systems....
The nursing home can afford these multimillion-dollar improvements partly because it has, for the past five years, been collecting significantly higher reimbursement rates from Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor. About half of its residents are covered by the program.
In 2012, the nursing facility was leased to Hancock Regional Hospital, a county-owned hospital 15 miles away. The lease lets it take advantage of a wrinkle in Medicaid’s complex funding formula that gives Indiana nursing homes owned or leased by city or county governments a funding boost. For Indiana, that translates to 30 percent more federal dollars per Medicaid resident. But that money is sent to the hospitals, which negotiate with the nursing homes on how to divide the funding.
Nearly 90 percent of the state’s 554 nursing homes have been leased or sold to county hospitals, state records show, bringing in hundreds of millions in extra federal payments to the state.
Even though Indiana’s nursing home population has remained steady at about 39,000 people over the past five years, Medicaid spending for the homes has increased by $900 million, in large part because of the extra federal dollars, according to state data. Total spending on Indiana nursing homes was $2.2 billion in 2016.
The funding enhancements were pioneered in Indiana, but hospitals in several other states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, have also used the process. Advocates say it has been a key factor in helping to keep Indiana’s city and county hospitals economically vital at a time when many rural hospitals nationwide are facing serious financial difficulties.