{"id":6091,"date":"2012-06-05T10:06:44","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T14:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=6091"},"modified":"2012-06-05T09:11:56","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T13:11:56","slug":"an-tipping-point-for-senior-care-in-the-north-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/06\/05\/an-tipping-point-for-senior-care-in-the-north-country\/","title":{"rendered":"A tipping point for senior care in the North Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It appears to be pure accident that Adirondack Health announced the elimination of sixty long-term nursing home beds at Uihlein in Lake Placid, just as Essex County supervisors were preparing to vote today on the likely sale of the Horace Nye home in Elizabethtown.<\/p>\n

Accident or no, the two events should be a wake-up call.<\/p>\n

The long, steady erosion in government and taxpayer resources for elder care in New York State has reached a tipping point, at least here in the North Country.<\/p>\n

For years, Medicaid reimbursements have been far too low to pay for the rising costs of those people — the old and the infirm — who need the sort of intense, nurse-assisted care that these facilities provide.<\/p>\n

Adirondack Health, based in Saranac Lake, is losing more than $1 million a year on the Uihlein facility.\u00a0 Essex County is losing $2 million annually at Horace Nye.<\/p>\n

That kind of red ink is clearly unsustainable.\u00a0 And it’s time to talk honestly and bluntly about what that means.<\/p>\n

Chandler Ralph, CEO of Adirondack Health, did that yesterday.\u00a0 She said point-blank that in future many poor, Medicaid-eligible people will be turned away from Uihlein.<\/p>\n

“We will still take Medicaid recipients, but it won’t be all comers like it is now.\u00a0 We can’t afford it,” she said.<\/p>\n

And in fact, the situation appears far more serious than that.\u00a0 Of the 60 remaining beds at Uihlein, 15 will be used for people in short-term rehabilitative care.\u00a0 That leaves just 45 beds for all long-term nursing care in Lake Placid.<\/p>\n

It seems likely that many of those beds will go to people with independent means, folks who can afford to pay far more for their care than Medicaid.<\/p>\n

In Essex County, meanwhile, the conversation has been less blunt, less clear.<\/p>\n

Town supervisors have suggested that the for-profit company that is expected to take over Horace Nye would continue to accept the poor, high-needs Medicaid patients who drive up costs without bringing in much revenue.<\/p>\n

But why would they?<\/p>\n

If a well-run, efficient, locally-rooted non-profit like Adirondack Health can’t make the numbers work — with salaries and benefits for staff already well below those offered at Horace Nye — why would a New York City-based corporation take on those kinds of residents?<\/p>\n

So if I’m right — if in the very near future there are simply far fewer beds in our region for low-income elderly people with dementia and other serious medical needs — what happens to them?<\/p>\n

In her comments this week, Ralph suggested that families in the North Country will have to do far more to care for their own seniors.<\/p>\n

That won’t be easy in an age when everyone has to have a job — sometimes two or three jobs — to make ends meet.\u00a0 This isn’t the 1950s, when Mom could afford to stay home to look after the kids and grandpa.<\/p>\n

To help families cope, Ralph called for creation of a new, better integrated network of service providers that might help people remain comfortable in their homes much longer.\u00a0 It’s a creative and compelling idea.<\/p>\n

But as Ralph acknowledged, that effort is just getting underway.\u00a0 The first organizational meeting is scheduled for next month.<\/p>\n

And particularly for the truly poor in the North Country, these developments at Uihlein and Horace could mean real, painful and immediate changes — right now.<\/p>\n

In the weeks and months ahead, many families will find that there are simply fewer good options when a senior finally reaches the point where they need nursing care.\u00a0 For some there will likely be no good options anywhere close to home.<\/p>\n

There’s a saying that you get what you pay for.\u00a0 And right now, this is the safety net for the elderly that we’re willing to pay for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears to be pure accident that Adirondack Health announced the elimination of sixty long-term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[22,6548,10,4803,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6094,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6091\/revisions\/6094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}