A Texas senate bill that will require nursing facilities to meet the state’s direct care payment ratio is advancing through the legislature.
The proposed bill will force nursing facilities through Texas’s Medicaid managed care program to ensure that at least 80% of the medical assistance reimbursement amount received is spent on direct care expenses.
It is scheduled for a hearing in the House Human Services Committee on May 9th.
Texas ranks third among states with the lowest CMS ratings for nursing homes and has the highest number of facilities with one- and two-star ratings in the country. Furthermore, a recent assessment by U.S. News ranked Texas 43rd nationally for nursing home quality.
“What that means is, there’s an establishment of this specific percentage of state dollars and federal dollars that has to go to the direct care of residents while they are in nursing facilities,” Andrea Earl, associate state director of advocacy and outreach at AARP Texas, told State of Reform.
Direct care in Texas is defined as funding for staff or physical therapy— not necessarily funds going to lease or rent facilities, she said.
“Trying to define and make sure that more dollars are going to direct care patients rather than lining the pockets of the industry itself is a big aim for this [legislation],” Earl said.
Although the state has promoted programs aimed to increase the number of licensed nursing professionals in the state, Earl told State of Reform that while improving staffing at facilities would contribute to improving the quality of care, creating transparency in the ownership structure will also be helpful to consumers.
“The federal government’s doing a pretty good job at communicating and explaining what’s going on and showing that these ownership structures really do impact the quality of care and that there is data directly linking to the private industry in these firms having poor quality of care in facilities,” she said.
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