The pending closing announced by Moran\u2019s Home in Bellwood earlier this week will affect dozens of residents and employees.
\nLee Ann Kaminski, the long-term care facility\u2019s administrator, updated The Daily Herald on the pending shutdown during the start of a busy day on Friday. She also detailed some of the reasons that led to the decision.
\n\u201cOver the last couple of years, there have been changes in the welfare\/Medicaid system for long-term care,\u201d said Kaminski. \u201cNone of it with a positive outcome.
\n\u201cOne of the major changes was (with) the payment system,\u201d said Kaminski. \u201cThey initiated (it) in April. Instead of paying us within 14 days of when we billed for a Medicaid patient they decided to hold our payment for 30 days after processing our claim.
\n\u201cJust to give you a for instance, our Medicaid check for the month of October came in on Dec. 11,\u201d said Kaminski.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been in this building for 20 years and I\u2019ve lived the changes; I\u2019ve seen the changes,\u201d explained Kaminski. \u201cEvery time a budget comes out, whether it\u2019s state or federal, we sit here and hold our breath to wait and see what kind of cuts we are going to take. This has happened over and over in long-term care.
\n\u201cAs we look forward, the balanced budget act that is coming into effect in January is really going to hurt some Medicaid elderly residents making them ineligible for payments,\u201d said Kaminski.
\nShe also noted she just learned of regulations that would require her to retrofit the facility with a full sprinkler system without any funding to do it. She explained this has been a growing trend where facilities face new regulations but are unable to get the funding to comply so they end up having to pay for the costs themselves.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to do business this way when everything is out of your hands,\u201d said Kaminski.
\nShe said she was \u201cextremely thankful\u201d to nursing homes that contacted her within 24 hours of this week\u2019s announcement. The homes, mostly local, told her they had available beds. Some facilities outside the area also offered beds on a temporary basis.
\nKaminski said the families of the residents were informed of their options regarding where residents can be moved. As of Friday morning, Kaminski said their were 13 confirmed admissions to other facilities.
\n\u201cAll were the first choice of the family member,\u201d said Kaminski. So, we are able, at this point, to meet the resident\u2019s choice for placement.\u201d
\nIn the skilled building, there were still around 30 residents as of Friday. Kaminski said no one had been moved yet from the personal care home as of Friday morning.
\nThe state\u2019s Department of Health was given a Jan. 11 closing date, however Kaminski explained the facility may remain open for a time beyond that date.
\n\u201cWe had to give the Department of Health some sort of termination date,\u201d said Kaminski.
\nShe explained she believed the residents could be moved within 30 days. However, if the process is not completed by then Kaminski said the facility would continue to operate and some staff would stay to continue to care for any remaining residents until they can be relocated.
\nKaminski said more than 50 employees would be affected by the closing of Moran\u2019s Home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pending closing announced by Moran\u2019s Home in Bellwood earlier this week will affect dozens of residents and employees. Lee Ann Kaminski, the long-term care facility\u2019s administrator, updated The Daily Herald on the pending shutdown during the start of a busy day on Friday. She also detailed some of the reasons that led to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}