Across the nation nursing homes are closing due to underfunding. The nursing homes are primarily closing in minority and poor areas because of underfunding by Medicaid. The average nursing home worker earns close to minimum wage, much less than other health care workers, which makes it difficult to hire good help. Medicaid covers close to 2/3 of nursing facilities funding, the rest comes from individuals either private-pay or insurance. Medicare will pays for a short-term rehabilitation, but does not reimburse for long-term care in a nursing home.
The states with the highest cuts are New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Minority communities, mainly Black and Hispanic, are having the most trouble keeping their nursing homes open. The best solution would be to improve access to home-based care and other community-based care models, such as assisted living facilities.
With nursing homes closing, the elderly are having trouble finding places to live. Between 1998 and 2008, there has been a 5% decrease in the number of beds available.
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Tags: Negligence, Nursing Homes
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 20th, 2011 at 7:30 am and is filed under Medical Malpractice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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