The Future of County Nursing Homes in New York State

In this NYHealth-funded report, the Center for Governmental Research (CGR) identifies key consequences of previous decisions to shift nursing home beds from the public to the private sector, to determine public policy implications for New York‘s nursing home system.

Virtually all nursing homes across New York State face wide-ranging, significant challenges. For county-owned homes, however, the future is especially troubled. The study finds 92% of county-owned nursing homes in New York outside New York City lost money in 2010, and most will require significant changes in how they operate to survive. Factors contributing to the homes’ financial losses include increasing costs, reimbursement levels that fail to cover those costs, and resulting increases in operating losses, accompanied by the need for increasing county subsidies, as well as the uncertainty of the continuation of several revenue sources.

The study finds that the financial stability of county homes has eroded substantially over the past several years, and the steady decline in county-owned nursing homes could become an exodus in the near future. Of the 33 counties outside NYC operating nursing homes as of January 2013, eight are in the process of selling them and at least five more indicate they are actively considering selling.

The report includes recommendations for New York State and county-level officials as they make decisions that affect the future of county-owned nursing homes.