County board tables discussion on issue to workshop

 

The administrator of St. John’s Lutheran Community asked the Freeborn County Board of Commissioners Tuesday to consider supporting the organization’s plans to delicense 26 of its skilled nursing beds.

St. John’s Administrator Scot Spates said the organization currently has 50 vacant beds, and the move would save St. John’s roughly $100,000 a year, including a fee of about $2,080 a year per bed, plus other costs including insurance.

Spates said the trend is that people are utilizing nursing home beds less as more senior housing and assisted living options have been built, which are less expensive.

Twenty years ago, he said, St. John’s had 200 skilled nursing beds, and after the delicensing of the 26 beds, it would have 144 — 60 at the site off of Minnesota Highway 13 and 84 at the Fountain Lake site. Presently, there are about 110 residents at both sites.

He referenced similar things happening to other senior care facilities in Albert Lea over the years for skilled nursing beds.

“We have too many beds in Albert Lea right now,” Spates said.

He said when the new St. John’s campus was built on Fountain Lake, St. John’s transferred some of its skilled nursing beds from its Highway 13 site, but no new beds were added.

He anticipates there will not be an increased demand for skilled nursing home beds for at least another 10 to 15 years as Baby Boomers age and people are getting their services at other facilities until they are around 85 years of age and require more services.

He said he wouldn’t be surprised if he was back before the board in another couple months talking about what to do with the other 30 open beds.

Fifth Ward Commissioner Mike Lee said he knows of a person who can’t get into a nursing home in Freeborn County and asked why that was the case if there were many open beds in the area.

Spates said he didn’t know the specific circumstances surrounding this person’s situation, but said there could be a few reasons, including the possibility that a local facility did not have the capabilities to care for that person’s needs. He also cited staffing as a concern.

He said when St. John’s received permission to build its new nursing home at the Fountain Lake site, it was told it had to be cost-neutral for the state. The state looked at the percentage of St. John’s residents on medical assistance, which at that time was 52%. Now at the new site, no more than 52% of its residents can be on medical assistance for the first three years of operation.

Board Chairman Chris Shoff asked how many veteran-certified beds St. John’s had.

Spates said St. John’s was not veteran-certified, which would allow it to bill the Veterans Administration for services. He said from his understanding, only one site in a city can have that certification and at one point Good Samaritan Society of Albert Lea did. He was unsure if the organization still had that certification.

Shoff said he could not support delicensing the beds without more information about why the request is being made, and Lee and Commissioner Dan Belshan motioned to table the resolution to allow more discussion at the board’s Nov. 12 workshop.