BURIEN, Wash. — Nursing homes in Washington are now seeing more money coming in the door thanks to an increase in Medicaid funding that kicked in on July 1.
The $107 million boost is thanks to a $69.3 billion budget approved earlier this year by state lawmakers to fund critical state services over the next two years.
It comes as the industry battles staffing and occupancy issues as nursing homes face an upward battle post-pandemic.
"Post Covid-19 is sort of a myth because we are all still in Covid in nursing homes," said Stacy Mesaros, an administrator at Avamere Rehabilitation of Burien.
Mesaros has been an administrator for 40 years and said the money will go primarily to fund wages.
"Staffing has been a challenge for us," said Mesaros who points to vaccine requirements, competing salaries with hospitals and needing to pay staffing agencies a cut for temp workers for the issue.
The latest data from the State Department of Social and Health Services show 62% of people living in a long-term care setting are covered by Medicaid, which means the majority of income for these facilities to pay staff depends heavily on the State.
"Not being able to staff adequately certainly has the potential for some lesser quality of care," Mesaros said.
It's a problem the Washington Health Care Association said should concern everyone, not just seniors.
"The Washington State population of seniors and those who will need this care is growing tremendously. And our ask of the legislature is both to catch up and keep up with the actual cost of care," said Lauri St. Ours with the Washington Health Care Association.
While the increase will vary depending on the nursing home, St. Ours said the average increase for skilled nursing facilities went from $20.18 to $21.59 per patient, per day.
"We are starting to look at hiring our own staff again and the new rate increases is really critical for us because it helps us catch up part of the gap," Mesaros said,
It's a gap that's in the millions.
According to the Washington Health Care Association, nursing homes have been operating in a shortfall for years.
$122 million in 2021 alone.