North Dakota Long Term Care Association Issue Briefs 2003

Nursing Facility Services:

v     Nursing facilities provide care to our poorest citizens, approximately 3,650 individuals are served monthly through Medicaid.

v     Nursing facilities provide care to individuals who require 24-hour continuous nursing and medical care.  Physician orders are necessary for admission.

v     The number one reason a person enters the nursing facility is families can no longer care for them at home!  Intermittent, in-home services are not enough.

v     The average age of a nursing facility resident is 84, with the age range 16 to 109 years old.

Nursing facilities are there when no one else can be.

 Cost of Nursing Facility Care:

The average cost in 2002 is $129.71 daily or $5.40 per hour.  Just think $5.40 for therapy, nursing care, food, lodging, activities, over-the-counter drugs, personal assistance with bathing, eating, and walking.  Nursing facilities are the best health care bargain for individuals that need intense, skilled 24-hour nursing care.  Nursing facilities need adequate payment to deliver quality care. 

In-Home Care:

North Dakota is recognized as a leader in spending state dollars to help people stay at home with intermittent care and services.  You don’t have to be poor, like individuals on Medicaid to receive services.  We even pay for family members to care for spouses, parents and other family members at home.  Very few states offer that service let alone use state dollars to pay for it.  Today, we are serving the poor through Medicaid, the near poor and middle income through SPED.  For SPED, a single person can have a home, car, and another $50,000 in assets and still get help.  If their monthly income is $950 or below they will get SPED services free.  This same individual could have $1,400 income, deduct $450 for medical expenses and still receive services free.  Under SPED a single person is disqualified for services when their monthly income exceeds $1,630.  SPED is touching the lives of many people. 

Increases in Funding SPED & Expanded SPED (in-home service funding)
            1999-2001       -           25.5% increase
            2001-2003       -           12.2% increase
            2003-2005       -           41% increase
IGT dollars were utilized to provide significant increases for in-home services in all three bienniums.

IGT Trust Funds

IGT Trust Fund Dollars are created by nursing facilities.  The funds generated from IGT would not be available without the existence of two governmental nursing facilities.  The fund would not grow unless we counted every nursing facility in the formula for accessing IGT dollars.  It is the intent of the Federal government that IGT dollars be spent only on Medicaid services.  Secondly, the IGT Trust Fund should benefit the recipients from whom the funds originate, nursing facility residents.  The Federal government quit this type of funding, in part because of misuse and abuse by States.

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July 31 2003 || www.ndltca.org/data/data08.html