Forced to rely on short-term contracts with health care staffing agencies, a county in southern Wisconsin paid almost $850,000 to hire contracted staff to work at Bloomfield Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in 2021 alone. 

In the end, however, this proved unsustainable as the cost to operate the facility had far exceeded the revenues generated in recent years, according to a new release sent out this week.

Although numerous discussions were held to determine whether to close the facility or pursue other options, ultimately it was decided that closing the facility was in the best interest of the county.

“I don’t think anyone wants to do this, but we are in a critical situation right now,” county board chair John Meyers said in a news release announcing the closure. “Our focus moving forward will be to responsibly close the facility and compassionately work with the residents, employees, and staff to ensure their needs are met.”

The county had known for some time that the situation in the facility had become dire, and Wisconsin Health Care Association and Wisconsin Center for Assisted Living President and CEO Rick Abrams worries the state will be hit with more closures.

Since Jan. 1, 11 directors of nursing and nine administrators have resigned from nursing homes across the state, according to Abrams.

“It’s terrible,” he said of the closure. “It’s terrible for the family, it’s bad for the staff and it’s bad for the continuity of care.”

Staffing was noted to be a “recurring challenge” for Bloomfield Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center.

The county discussed partnering with another entity to provide services, building a new facility in Dodgeville, or selling the facility to a private-owned nursing home management company. However, none of those options ever worked out given the condition of the facility as well as the lack of staffing.

The priority now will be to place all of the facility’s current residents into other local skilled nursing facilities. The deal will not close until that is done.

The county is also considering compensating and incentivizing affected Bloomfield employees to remain in their positions throughout the duration of the closure process to help ensure that all of the residents are cared for and properly placed.

The last county-owned facility to close in the state was the Lakeview Manor in Waupaca County, which closed in 2017.

Long-term Solutions For The State

To ensure that Bloomfield is the last county-owned facility to close in the state this year, Abrams is looking to several solutions to help the post-acute care industry out long-term.

“As far as workforce, we’ve been working very closely with the Evers administration on three initiatives,” he explained.

The first is to train and deploy the National Guard to work as CNAs at nursing homes. Second, Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services contracted with six staffing agencies for the state to pay 60% of their rates.

Abrams sees staffing agencies as “part of the problem and not the solution.”

“Right now it’s the Wild Wild West. The people who are taking it on the chin are our facilities and our residents,” he said.

Lastly the state will use between 5 and $6 million dollars from American Rescue Plan funds to grow its caregiver career program.

“This is a program where we take either unemployed people, or underemployed people, and our nursing facilities hire them,” Abrams explained. “Through the grant, we’re able to reimburse our facilities to train, test and certify nurse aides.”

The goal is to train up to 500 people to be CNAs, but Abrams is hoping that with an infusion of more funding from the state that number can bump up closer to 3,000 CNAs within the next 18 months.

He’s also working with the University of Wisconsin to offer tuition credit for students to enter into a career in health care.

“None of these are the answer, but they’re going to help alleviate the pressure,” he said.