Fiscal Year 2008 Medicare funding for skilled nursing facilities will be cut by more than $10 billion over five years, and long term care associations are seeing red.
Medicare and Medicaid cover close to 80 percent of nursing home patients. According to the American Health Care Association (AHCA), which represents long term care providers, Medicaid underpays patients by almost $13 per patient a day, but Medicare compensates for some of the shortfall.
AHCA president and CEO Bill Yarwood said, “Now is precisely the time we as a nation must be investing in and strengthening America’s long term care infrastructure – not weakening it by cutting critical Medicare and Medicaid funding, which are essential for the quality long term care and services relied upon by America’s frail, elderly and disabled.â€
Alan Rosenbloom, president of the Alliance for Quality Nursing, is concerned about how the budget cuts will affect Medicare’s “post-acute†benefit.
