Tag Archives for long-term care ombudsman

Funding for Seniors in Raimondo’s FY 2020 Budget Blueprint

Published in the Woonsocket Call on January 27, 2019

By Herb Weiss

Almost two weeks ago, Democratic Governor Gina Raimondo formerly unveiled her $9.9 billion budget proposal to the Rhode Island General Assembly. The House and Senate Finance Committees then begin the task of holding hearings on budget plan, getting feedback from the administration and the public. Once the revised estimates of tax revenue and social-services spending is available in May, negotiations seriously begin between Raimondo, the House Speaker and Senate President to craft the House’s budget proposal. Lawmakers will hammer out and pass a final state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Local media coverage of Raimondo’s ambitious spending initiatives zeroed in on her call for expanding free tuition to Rhode Island College and adding some public pre-kindergarten, increasing minimum wage from $ 10.50 to $ 11.10 per hour, allowing mobile sports betting and legalizing recreational marijuana.

But, Raimondo’s budget proposal gives state lawmakers a road map for what programs and services are needed for a state with a graying population.

According to Meghan Connelly, DEA’s Spokesperson, a nearly 60 percent increase in the State’s population of residents aged 65 and older from the years 2016 to 2040 highlights the need for continued investments in programs servicing Rhode Island’s older adults and their family caregivers.

Connelly says Raimondo’s budget proposal, released on January 17, elevates Elderly Affairs from a division under the Department of Human Services to an Office within the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. The governor shifts financing for the office and 31.0 FTE positions to EOHHS to accomplish this recommended action.

“The projected increase in the state’s senior population – from 174,000 in 2016 to 265,000 by 2040 – coupled with the proven impact of community-based supports and services, highlights the need for continuing to invest in helping our seniors remain home, connected to their families and networks. Support of aging-related health-promotion initiatives are essential to maintain a high quality of life for Rhode Island seniors while minimizing aging-related healthcare costs,” says Connelly

“We are focused on making it easier for older adults to live independent, fulfilling lives for as long as possible,” said Michelle Szylin, Acting Director of the Division of Elderly Affairs. “The Co-Pay expansion [in the governor’s proposed budget] enables additional older adults to age-in-place, remaining safely in their homes and engaging in their communities.”

The Co-Pay expansion enables additional older adults to age-in-place, remaining safely in their homes and engaging in their communities. The governor’s proposal to expand the state’s Co-Pay program [by $ 550,000] will allow more seniors to reside in their communities, staying connected to their family and network of friends and neighbors.

Providing access to the Co-Pay program to individuals earning up to 250% of the Federal Poverty Level will allow more seniors to age-in-place with a better quality of life and delay nursing home admission. The DEA Co-Pay program was established in 1986 as an option for elders who would otherwise be ineligible for subsidized home and community care assistance because they did not qualify for the Rhode Island Medical Assistance program.

Recognizing the importance of the state’s Elderly Transportation Program to keep older Rhode Islander’s independent, Raimondo’s budget proposal calls for additional funding of $1.8 million from general funds to support the State’s elderly transportation program. This program provides non-emergency transportation benefits to Rhode Islanders age 60 and over who do not have access to any means of transportation. The program provides transportation to and from medical appointments, adult day care, meal sites, dialysis/cancer treatment and the Insight Program.

Raimondo’s proposed budget also increases Health Facilities regulation staffing to increase the number of inspections to state-licensed health care facilities. The governor recommends a $327,383 increase in restricted receipt funds for 3.0 FTE positions. These positions will bolster existing staffing to increase the number of inspections to state-licensed healthcare facilities.

The Governor’s proposed FY 2020 budget also through the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority continues to subsidize the transit of elderly and disabled Rhode Islanders through the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.

Raimondo’s proposed budget also continues the support for the Independent Provider model P model with almost $200,000 in general revenue funds budgeted (about $770,000 all funds) to cover implementation costs. The goal of this model is to increase workforce capacity and create a new option for delivery of direct support services for both seniors and people with developmental disabilities.

Finally, the governor’s FY 2020 budget also allocates funding to an array of programs and services for seniors. Here’s a sampling: $800,000 to support the state’s senior centers through a grant process (the amount was doubled last year); $ 530,000 to support Meals on Wheels; $ 85,000 to implement security measures in elderly housing complexes; $ 169,000 for the long-term care ombudsman through the Alliance for Better Long Term Care, which advocates on behalf of residents of nursing homes, assisted living residences and certain other facilities, as well as recipients of home care services; and $ 500,000 funds the state’s Home Modifications program at Governor’s Commission on Disabilities.

Nursing Facility Provides Take a Hit

Raimondo’s proposed budget plan seeks to freeze the state’s Medicaid payment rates to hospitals, slashing funding by an estimated $15 million overall for the year, and to limit the rate increase for nursing homes to 1%, costing them nursing home providers about $4 million.
“We are beginning the budget process with a 1 percent increase in the COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment), says Scott Fraser, President and CEO of Rhode Island Health Care Association (RIHCA), warning that “this is not enough.”

“Since 2012, nursing facility costs have risen 21.6 percent while Medicaid payment rates have only gone up by 9.6 percent, adds Fraser, noting that by statute, rates are supposed to be adjusted annually for inflation. “We will be advocating for additional funding for nursing facilities throughout the remainder of the budget process,” he warns.

Jim Nyberg, Director LeadingAge RI, an organization representing not-for-profit providers of aging services, joins with RIHCA in calling on Rhode Island lawmakers to restore the full inflation adjustment. “Ongoing increases in minimum wage (up 42 percent since 2012) make it harder for publicly funded providers to compete for skilled workers,” says Nyberg, noting that most of his nonprofit nursing homes have 60 percent to 70 percent of their residents on Medicaid. “A rate increase is needed help nursing homes recruit and retain the direct care workers that are so critical to providing quality care,” he says.

“Since 2016, our nursing homes and consumers have been severely disrupted by UHIP, financially and operationally. The ongoing problems with Medicaid application approvals and payments has resulted in significant increases in staff workload just to maintain operations, let alone the impact on cash flow and financial stability, adds Nybrg.

Nyberg’s group is also advocating to expand the CoPay program for individuals under the age of 65 with dementia. “This has been proposed in the past but not included in this budget. We think that such an expansion will help this at-risk population for whom no publicly-funded programs and services currently exist,” he says.

Lawmakers, AARP Rhode Island Gives Comments

AARP Rhode Island is encouraged to see that the Governor placed an increase in the State Budget for the Department of Elderly Affairs home healthcare Co-Pay program,” said AARP Rhode Island Advocacy Director John DiTomasso. “By increasing the income eligibility from 200% of the poverty level to 250%, more older Rhode Islanders will be able to obtain home care services at reduced hourly rates,” he added. “This will help large numbers of people to extend the time they can age in place in their home and in their community rather than in more costly state-paid long-term care facilities,” says DiTomasso.

Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio says, “Upon a first look at the budget, I am very pleased that some of the Senate’s top priorities are incorporated. The Governor had to close a significant deficit, and difficult choices had to be made. However, the budget is a statement of priorities, and initiatives like the no-fare bus pass program for low-income seniors and disabled Rhode Islanders are a priority for us in the Senate. I am very pleased to see this program funded in the budget, along with many other services for seniors, and I look forward to deeper analysis of all aspects of the budget in the months ahead.”

AddsD House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, “The House Finance Committee will soon begin holding public hearings and reviewing every aspect of the Governor’s budget proposal. We will make certain that the level of care and services to older adults will be maintained and hopefully enhanced. We are facing significant budget challenges this year, but we will always keep the needs of our seniors at the forefront of the discussions.”

Older Rhode Islanders and aging groups must continue to push the House to at a minimal maintain the governor’s senior agenda. Hopefully, as Mattiello said, senior programs and services can be enhanced.

For a Senate Fiscal Analysis of Raimondo’s FY 2020 budget, go to http://www.rilegislature.gov/sfiscal/Budget%20Analyses/FY2020%20SFO%20Governor’s%20Budget%20-%20First%20Look.pdf.

Congressional report spotlights nursing home abuse

Published in The Times dated August 6, 2001

Congressional investigators have recently released a scathing report charging that within the last two years more than 30 percent of the nation’s nursing homes – about 5,285 facilities – were cited by state inspectors for at least one abuse violation that had the potential to cause harm.

These facilities were cited for almost 9,000 violations during the two-year congressional study, the report said.

Citing information gleaned from a sampling of state inspection reports or formal complaints, the 15-page report released last week at a hearing called by Henry Waxman (D-Calif), Minority Chairman of the House Committee of Government Reform, found that in more than 1,600 nursing facilities, approximately one out of every 10, the abuse violations were serious enough to cause significant harm to residents or to place them in immediate jeopardy of death or serious injury.

Abused residents were punched, choked or kicked by staff members or other residents, the report said, stating that the attacks frequently caused serious injuries such as fractured bones and lacerations.  In other instances, residents were being groped or sexually molested.

Although the report, “Abuse of Residents is a Major Problem in U.S. Nursing Homes,” prepared by Minority Staff of the Committee’s Special Investigation Division, found that the percentage of nursing facilities with abuse violations is increasing, it noted that the reasons for this increase are unclear.

In his opening remarks, Waxman stated that it had been unwise for Congress to repeal the Boren Amendment in 1997, a federal law which mandated that states provide nursing facilities with adequate funding to operate.  Because of this, he said, Medicaid funding for nursing facility care has not kept pace with the rising costs of providing care.

Waxman’s legislative prescription for attacking the growing abuse in the nation’s nursing facilities is to introduce a legislative proposal that would reestablish the abolished Boren Amendment, mandating minimum nurse staffing requirements, imposing tougher regulatory sanctions on poorly performing facilities, and instituting criminal background checks for nursing facility employees, or increasing internet disclosures on nursing facility care.

What’s playing out in Rhode Island?

According to Wayne Farrington, Chief of Facilities Regulation at the state’s Department of Health, the reporting of Rhode Island abuse complaints has risen by 10 percent.  The statewide increase in reports of abuse, neglect and mistreatment probably mirrors the tragic national problem, he tells All About Seniors, but is smaller because the Rhode Island 1987 statute has made it a misdemeanor for health care professionals or public safety officials not to report suspected abuse, neglect, mistreatment.  The size of the national increase is partially due to abuse reporting being a new requirement in some states.  Farrington added. 

Farrington states that the biggest factor that increases the number of reported calls of abuse, neglect and mistreatment is the severe statewide staffing shortage in Rhode Island’s nursing facilities.

“Overworked staff may become short tempered and this can result in abuse.  Not enough staff in the facility may also result in resident’s needs not being met,” he added.

Administrator Hugh Hall, of Cherry Hill Manor, also feels that the state’s critical staffing crisis contributes to the possibility of increased abuse and that crisis also affects the quality of care provided in the state’s 104 nursing facilities.

“Today’s nursing facility employees are underpaid, overworked creating an environment in which even the best employee may falter,” Hall said.

The administrator urges the General Assembly to increase Medicaid payments to more adequately cover the nursing facility’s actual cost of care, allowing for greater increases in direct care provider salaries.

“While last year’s average cost of care in a Rhode Island facility was $140 per day the state’s Medicaid program only reimbursed facilities $116 for the care provided, creating a serious shortage of funds in many facilities, Hall added.

“There are not enough certified nursing assistants in the system to deliver the care,” Hall said noting that opportunities must be created and a fair wage paid to attract people into this profession.

Meanwhile, Hall believes that the overwhelming majority of nursing facilities in Rhode Island provide quality care.  These facilities do criminal background checks and provide staff training.  They educate their staff about the facility’s expectation on quality patient care, he said.

Hall says facilities that have on going problems with abuse should be prosecuted to “the fullest extent of the law.”

Although Roberta Hawkins, the state’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman and Executive Director of the Alliance for Better Long-Term Care sides with Farrington and Hall about the critical need to directly confront the adverse impact of the staffing shortage in facilities, “it’s not to excuse to provide bad care,” she says.  “If facilities can’t care for residents then they should not admit them.”

A mandated continuing education program for both professional nurses and certified nursing assistants can be an effective strategy for reducing the incidence of abuse while enabling the better trained worker to care for more medically complex residents.

Additionally, Hawkins and long-term care providers are pushing for more state and federal Medicaid dollars to be allocated to provide a living wage for direct care workers.

Although lawmakers this year gave a small increase, “it’s not what was needed but it’s a start,” she acknowledges.

A divided Congress and a conservative Bush White House may well keep Waxman’s legislative proposal that addresses the problem of rising abuse in the nation’s more than 17,000 nursing facilities from every being enabled.

So, change must begin in the Ocean State.

When the Rhode Island General Assembly comes back into session next year, it becomes critical that the serious direct care staffing shortage in Rhode Island’s nursing facilities become a top legislative priority.

As the Republican and Democratic Gubernatorial candidates gear up their political campaigns and dream of becoming the state’s top elected policy official, they might well consider taking up the just cause of improving the care provided in the state’s nursing facilities.

Lawmakers can gubernatorial candidates can ill afford to ignore this key policy issue, one that puts the state’s 10,000 frail nursing facility residents in continued jeopardy of abuse, neglect or mistreatment.

On a political note, hundred of thousands of families and friends of these residents, who are voters, are watching.