Montana News

Assisted living care owners say medicaid cuts would mean eviction for some clients

Posted: Jun 20, 2011 11:08 PM by Amanda Venegas
Updated: Jun 20, 2011 11:15 PM

Assisted living care owners face major medicaid cuts

BILLINGS - With massive medicaid cuts on the horizon, owners of some assisted living facilities are preparing for a blow they say, will force them to give their clients eviction notices. Owners across the state are facing one-time funding cuts to the state's mediciaid reimbursement program due to the passage of House Bill 2, which the Montana legislature and Governor Scweitzer signed off on.

Beginning August 1, the state is looking to cut in home care reimbursement costs by 2 percent and assisted living rates will be cut by 10 percent. Providers say they already receive half of what it truly costs to service clients on Medicaid reimbursement. Direct care workers will also be impacted by a half-million dollars in cuts. More than 2,300 Montanans use the Medicaid waiver program.

Primrose Assisted Living Care owner Cynthia Johnson in Billings says, with those cuts, six of her nine residents will be affected. She believes that these cuts are affecting the quality of life for the elderly and disabled.

"I have people that live here at Primrose that if they tell me that this is the most they can pay for these people, I would have no choice but to give them 30 days notice and replace them with private pay clients. Some of these people have made their homes here for years, they don't want to leave their home," said Cynthia Johnson.

Johnson says people will then live in nursing homes, which cost the state three times the amount that is currently allotted under medicaid.

Right now written public comment on the proposed changes will be accepted until June 23. You can write the Office of Legal Affairs at P.O. Box 4210 Helena, MT 59604. Their number is (406) 444-3026.

Yellowstone County has the largest number of medicaid recipients in the state with more than 11,000 people. The counties with the highest population percentage enrolled on medicaid are Roosevelt County at nearly 26 percent of the population and Big Horn County, where 19.4 percent of the county's population receives medicaid services.