For the week of June 27 - July 3, 2001

Blaine Manor losses double expectations

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By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer

Blaine County’s only skilled-care nursing home is doing financially worse than expected when it switched management companies eight months ago.

Blaine Manor is the county’s only skilled-care nursing home. Express photo by Willy Cook

Losses have already reached $350,000, compared to projected losses of $185,000 for the entire year, the home’s director Gail Goglia said.

And the home may face cutbacks when county commissioners set the 2002 budget next month.

Last year, the commissioners approved a $1.1 million tax levy for the county-owned home.

"Obviously, we can’t afford to do that forever," Commissioner Dennis Wright said Thursday.

Since November, when St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center declined to continue managing the home and the Hailey Medical Clinic took over operations, there has been little public discussion of the home’s future. But Wright said those discussions would begin with this summer’s county budget-setting process.

When asked if shutting down the home would be an option, Wright said, "I wasn’t prepared to go there last year," because accurate financial numbers weren’t available.

The home’s director, Gail Goglia, attributes most of the losses to reduced Medicaid payments. She also cites one-time startup costs and low resident numbers she says are due, in part, to a mild winter. But she remains optimistic about the home’s future.

Goglia said because Blaine Manor is no longer attached to a hospital, Medicaid pays only $133.85 per day for each resident instead of $151 per day. The difference means a loss of $100,000 annually.

"For a place like this," she said, that’s a "huge amount of money."

Medicare, which pays Blaine Manor for patients who need rehabilitation before returning home from the hospital.

Usually, Blaine Manor has two to four of the patients at any given time, said Goglia, but recently, that number has been closer to one.

"I think it might have been the [mild] winter," she said. "There wasn’t a lot of flu, there wasn’t a lot of pneumonia, there wasn’t a lot of ice for people to slip and break their hip on."

Overall, the average census since November has been 20, while the home has a capacity of 25.

All of this has contributed to low revenues, which Blaine County Clerk Marsha Reimann said she expects to be $833,330 for the year. For the last eight months, Goglia said, revenue has been about $400,000.

At the same time, costs have increased. Some have been one-time startup costs, while others may be ongoing.

Goglia said Blaine Manor paid $100,000 in expenses associated with separating from St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center. New computer software, for example, cost $15,000, and the installation of a new fire panel cost $10,000.

"Given all the up-front costs we’ve had, I think we’re doing pretty well," Goglia said.

Next year, the home won’t have those costs, but others will continue. Liability insurance is one. Goglia said payments went from $6,000 to $29,000 when insurance companies boosted premiums after patients won major punitive damages in cases in Florida and California last year.

"I think you have to worry anytime you see financial losses," said Goglia. She hopes to "ameliorate" some of them by increasing the number of residents at the home.

To that end, she said, she plans to boost marketing both locally and outside the county. It is commonly accepted in the industry that a skilled-care nursing home needs at least 45 residents to be financially viable.

"A lot of people have sort of forgotten that we’re here," she said.

Goglia said she’s still working on the home’s budget for next year and doesn’t yet know how much she’ll ask the county to contribute. She predicted, however, that the amount will be less than the county contributed this year.

 

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