Advocates for long-term care providers in New Jersey and their residents are taking competing annual funding pleas to government leaders to the wire.
With the July 1 deadline less than a week away, sector leaders with the Health Care Association of New Jersey and LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware are making their final push for an additional $103 million to address caregiving and staffing issues.
Their goal is down from an initial ask of $200 million but comes with the appeal of more federal matching dollars.
Meanwhile, the state’s Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman has made a parallel push supporting legislation that would nearly triple the personal needs allowance received by Medicaid recipients each month — from $50 to $140.
Both groups say they need the funding to ensure that vulnerable seniors are not neglected in the state budget.
“We are concerned that the needs of frail elderly seniors who require nursing home care may be pushed aside to make room for other spending priorities,” wrote the nursing home associations. “These seniors have already been negatively impacted by many years of poor Medicaid funding. They deserve better. Their healthcare needs should be top priority in the next state budget.”
More and broader incentives
The association’s proposal notes that the proposed budget would leave a $62.8 million shortfall compared to the current year’s budget. It requests that this funding be restored — warning that failure to do so could lead to nursing home closures like that of Princeton Nursing and Rehabilitation Center last September.
The governor’s proposed budget also includes a modest $7.2 million increase for nursing home staffing. That number, however, will not even cover the costs of a $1 increase in the minimum wage that took effect in January, the letter claims. Providers are calling for an additional $40 million to help cover the costs of staffing.
Beyond these direct funding increases, the letter also calls for a $25 million increase to the state’s Quality Incentive Payment Program to be applied to the nursing home base rate — not just to bonus payments for nursing homes that are able to achieve high levels of staffing.
The provider leaders also reminded policymakers that these increases also would qualify for matching federal funding. “This way the federal government can help pay for its new staffing mandate,” the letter writers reminded.
State Budget Committee meetings will take place Wednesday afternoon, HCANJ vice president John Indyk told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, calling the ultimate shape of the budget tenuous.
