WA can’t afford even more cuts to skilled nursing home funding | Opinion
Our community deserves high-quality medical care at every step of the healing process. For many people, the hospital is only the beginning of their medical journey after an illness or injury leaves them too sick to go home.
Every year in Washington, 46,000 patients are discharged from local hospitals into the high quality 24/7 care of skilled nursing facilities like the one I manage in Kennewick.
Unfortunately, especially in our part of the state, many deserving low-income patients struggle to find a facility that can accept Medicaid insurance and is close to home. It breaks my heart when I answer the phone every day and hear of yet another family looking for space for their loved one to go. I wish we could help them all, but the math is not in anyone’s favor.
For patients who rely on Medicaid to cover the cost of their care, what they probably don’t know is that the state will only pay providers like us based on what their care would have cost several years ago. The Medicaid reimbursement system has been broken in this particular way for a long time, but there was a moment of relief last year when Washington legislators finally updated Medicaid funding to reflect 2024 costs instead of only 2022 costs.
This year, however, Governor Ferguson proposed that lawmakers should reverse course and claw back the funding investment the Legislature just committed to for the people who rely on taxpayer-supported insurance. It’s a troubling message to the tens of thousands of low-income Washingtonians who depend on state services: the stability and availability of their healthcare options is not a priority.
Skilled nursing facilities have become an extension of the hospital system over the past several years as our average patients’ acuity has gone up and we provide care for increasingly complicated wounds, behaviors, and illnesses. Skilled nursing facilities can provide services like post-surgical rehabilitation and support for patients through chronic conditions like cancer, kidney failure, and congestive heart failure.
Our responsibility for people in such vulnerable states means that we are rightly subject to a strict amount of scrutiny, regulation, and oversight. Washington state has some of the strongest staffing standards in the country when it comes to skilled nursing facilities. However, these high standards require adequate funding to provide the high-quality of care every patient deserves and sustain a variety of provider options in each community.
The need for a stable and secure healthcare system in Washington state has always been true, but now it’s also growing. As baby boomers reach retirement age, the number of Washington residents over age 85 is expected to quadruple by 2050. Long-term care services like ours are an essential part of the housing and healthcare infrastructure in our communities. We must invest to ensure that these services will be there when we need them, too.
The business of running a nursing home is becoming a delicate one as our costs increase every year despite having the same amount of staff and patients. Taxes, necessary wage increases, new regulations, they all cost money to implement. The inevitable loss is in our capacity to accept new patients on Medicaid. Every lost spot is another family I have to turn down on the phone. Every cut made to reimbursement rates likely means another community loses a skilled nursing provider.
When I first began working in skilled nursing facilities, I didn’t expect to fall in love with the population we serve. But that’s exactly what happened and it’s why I’m still here over a dozen years later. The people we support have so much to offer the world – I learn something new from my patients every day. It is a shame that our systems do not better support them as they live their lives under our care.
Our goal is to help our community heal. I urge the legislature to protect the spectrum of healthcare by sticking by their word and not going back on their investments in skilled nursing. Protect Medicaid funding for every Washington resident who needs it.
Parker Rieckleman is the Administrator of Regency Canyon Lakes Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and has worked in skilled nursing facilities for fourteen years.