Nursing homes shed thousands of jobs

By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 11:29 PM Wednesday, Dec 7, 2011 Nursing homes have shed during least 3,000 jobs in recent months in a arise of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, dual recent surveys show.The Ohio Health Care Association pronounced that a 60 percent of its members who responded to a survey reported some-more than 2,800 pursuit cuts. That represents about 8 percent of their staff, pronounced Peter Van Runkle, OHCAs senior manager director.LeadingAge Ohio, meanwhile, pronounced 25 of its nonprofit nursing home members in recent weeks attributed a loss of 312 jobs to cuts in state Medicaid payment to nursing homes. Those rate cuts averaged 5.8 percent per patient.Medicare in October cut its rates by eleven percent. That move came after payment changes a year earlier that were ostensible to be cost-neutral, but cost a government program $4 billion some-more than expected.The Ohio Health Care Association wants a Medicare rate cuts phased in over time.The stroke of a Medicare cuts will be uneven, pronounced Bob Applebaum, director of a Ohio Long-term Care Research Projectat Miami Universitys Scripps Gerontology Center. Some facilities that had seen a significant boost in Medicare payment in October 2010 will come out ahead, he said, while for alternative facilities, a payment cuts will be really damaging.Applebaum pronounced hes seen a Ohio Health Care Associations survey, and pronounced not all of a 2,800 pursuit cuts can be attributed to payment cuts. Other factors included cutting staff who werent behaving up to expectations and anniversary work force adjustments.Facilities lose staff all a time for lots of reasons, Applebaum said.State officials pronounced only three Medicaid nursing home facilities have closed so far this fiscal year, in line with a number of closings in a first five months of a previous dual fiscal years.So far, you are not seeing a spike in closures, Eric Poklar, spokesman for Gov. John Kasichs Office of Health Transformation, pronounced in an email.Declines in nursing home practice are being offset by hiring in a home health caring sector, Poklar said.But John Alfano, president and CEO of LeadingAge Ohio, pronounced theres no doubt that payment cuts will have a long-term negative stroke on quality of care, not to mention nursing home employees.Half of a respondents to a LeadingAge survey pronounced they will freeze or cut wages in 2012.

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