Impact of Potential Loss of
Medicaid 10-Day Bed-Hold

 

Massachusetts nursing home residents who are briefly hospitalized or leave to visit family risk losing their bed in the facility under a proposed state budget cut that is sparking outrage among advocates for the elderly and disabled. The $9 million to be cut from Medicaid spending was intended to pay nursing homes to reserve a resident’s bed for up to 10 days, but the program has been eliminated in the budget legislators are finalizing. Without a reprieve, the program will end July 8.

Federal law requires nursing homes to readmit a resident after a temporary leave to the first available bed in a semiprivate room, but it does not guarantee the person the same room or bed as before.

The loss of a nursing home bed feels “more like an eviction than a room transfer,“ and residents can “suffer medical and psychological harm from such an upheaval,’’ said Arlene Germain, president of The Massachusetts Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. Advocates said that because so many nursing home residents have dementia, the prospect of facing a new bed and room each time they leave and return can be especially confusing.

Full Boston Globe article…

 

6/11