Changes to how Medicaid reimburses assisted living facilities could limit where senior citizens can live.
"Ultimately we'll have to reduce the number of units available to Medicaid, just to be good financial stewards of our resources," said Tim Buchanan, CEO of Legends Senior Living.
Half of Legends' Kansas facilities get reimbursement from Medicaid. Recently, case workers have been reevaluating and reducing how many units of time it takes to complete services, such as bathing a resident.
The state reimburses assisted living centers for those time units, meaning they're getting less money.
"It's always been subsidised a little bit by the provider but this takes us back way too far, way below the cost of delivering services to where providers aren't able to absorb all of this."
Buchanan says Legends has already had to have difficult conversations with families about whether they can afford to keep loved ones in their current facility. If a person cannot afford to make up the costs, they would either have to move home or to a nursing facility.
