Waiting for a waiver
By Staff
March 30, 2003
Federal authorities should act immediately to grant a waiver requested by King's Daughters &Sons Rest Home from a Medicaid assessment the nursing home has to pay even though it doesn't accept Medicaid.
The $4-a-day bed assessment is being passed along to residents already strapped with the high cost of elder care. As one local wag put it the other day, "There ain't nothing cheap about old age."
The bed tax was passed by the Legislature over the veto of Gov. Ronnie Musgrove as one of many elements in trying to restore some sense of financial stability to the state's Medicaid program. It came to the forefront when King's Daughters and Sons administrator Mike Hatten sent out a letter explaining that his facility was legally bound to assess the additional charges.
Although the bed assessment was put into law in 1992 for all licensed nursing home beds in the state, King's Daughters didn't pay it because the only penalty was to have its Medicaid reimbursements withheld. Because King's Daughters doesn't accept Medicaid, losing Medicaid reimbursements was not an issue.
It became an issue last year when the Legislature amended the law and doubled the bed assessment from $2 to $4 a bed each day. Lawmakers also gave the Division of Medicaid permission to levy a tax lien against nursing homes for not paying the assessment.
The law also allowed for the Division of Medicaid to seek a waiver that would exempt religious, nonprofit and charitable nursing homes from the assessment. And that's where the local case stands.
King's Daughters is a nonprofit, religiously-affiliated, 120-bed nursing home run by a volunteer board of directors and owned and operated by The Earnest Workers Circle of Meridian. The Earnest Workers Circle is a member of the International Order of King's Daughters &Sons, a philanthropic, interdenominational Christian organization founded in 1886.
We agree with the nursing home that it is blatantly unfair for its residents to have to pay the additional bed tax to support a Medicaid program to which it does not subscribe. It reaps no benefits from Medicaid and, in fact, its costs for a semi-private room are well below the average Medicaid rate.
Hatten summed it up: "The goal of this ministry is to supply nursing home care at the lowest possible cost we can. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a nursing home for the affluent."
Well said.
