Local health care leaders are bracing for potentially industry-changing finance reductions after Texas lawmakers revealed earlier this year plans to cut more than $31 billion from the state’s budget in 2011-12.

Greg Lentz, chairman of the Texas Health Care Association and CEO of HealthMark Group, which owns local nursing care facility Park Manor, spoke to the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce’s Government and Legislative Affairs Committee March 1 and said long-term care facilities could be facing a bleak future if the budget is adopted as proposed.

“We have a dire situation on our hands,” Lentz said.

What initially was published by the state as a 10 percent reduction in Medicaid payments to long-term care facilities is, Lentz said, a 33 percent cut. That would result in a $1.4 billion loss in funding for state Medicaid funding for nursing rehabilitation care.

Lentz believes that such large-scale financial cutbacks could ultimately spell doom for many facilities, services and programs that primarily assist the elderly.

“These are not exaggerations, these are the facts,” he said.

Lentz described a scenario in which nursing care facilities close, leaving those who need the care and service they provide nowhere to go but hospitals and emergency rooms.

“That will result in longer wait times and higher health care costs,” he said.

The state is proposing cutting the base Medicaid payment nursing and rehabilitation centers receive. Such facilities receive approximately $126 per day per patient.

Claire Mackey, Administrator for Lawrence Street Health Care in Tomball, put that amount into perspective.

“For that you can barely get a hotel,” Mackey said. “And we’re expected to provide 24-hour nursing care, pay overhead, provide activities, supplies and medication.”

Mackey explained that Lawrence Street has expected the proposed cuts and “has done a lot of projecting.”

“We’ve definitely seen this coming,” she said. “Is it right? Is it fair? It doesn’t feel that way. If the 33 percent (cut) comes, that would create some drastic changes.”

Both Lentz and Mackey said that if they are forced to make those drastic changes, it would affect the quality of life their patients receive.

“The first thing that will change is quality of life, the programs, the day-to-day activities,” Mackey said.

Lentz said HealthMark Group’s facilities would have to “look at what our staffing would be reduced by.”

“Most of our cost is payroll, we’d have to first take a look at how we would reduce payroll,” he said. “And that would eventually impact care.”

“We’re already comprised,” Mackey added. “We have to get more creative on a daily basis.”

Lentz’s presentation to the Chamber last week was part of a “grassroots effort” that he says is critical to convincing state lawmakers to alter their plans for reductions.

“It has to start here,” he said. “It’s a local problem.”

The Chamber agreed last week to present to its board a proposal to send a resolution, signed by local health care groups encouraging lawmakers to amend the reductions.

“When there’s fat to cut in the budget, they should cut it out,” he said. “But they’re sawing off bones and limbs.”

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed