'A little bit different' at Share Convalescent Home
May 3, 2020
Share Convalescent Home Director Kelly Parker received notice on April 15 that he passed his licensure exam with the state board. He has sent in paperwork and expects soon to be the licensed administrator for the nursing home. Alva Hospital Authority (AHA) trustees congratulated him during their meeting Tuesday.
“It’s been a little bit different these days with the coronavirus and all that,” said Parker. “We’ve had really good participation in a lot of changing situations by our staff. It seems like every time we turn around, there’s more guidance or different guidance from either the state health department or Medicare or CDC. Our staff have kind of embraced the challenge and stepped up, and they’re doing an excellent job.
“Our residents are probably being more impacted than anybody else through this situation. They’ve pretty much all of them been confined to their rooms with very little activity outside of their rooms since this started and very little contact with their family and their loved ones.
“We want to thank Mark Nichols (Share IT) for helping us get set up to where we have Zoom meetings available for our residents. Our nursing staff has done a great job of helping our residents interact with their family members through window visits and things of that nature.
“Everybody’s really pulling together, and I think we’re making the best out of it,” he concluded.
The nursing home has had no positive cases of COVID-19. According to requirements, a wing has been set up for quarantine of residents who have left the facility and then returned. Parker said they had one person who left for dialysis and could not return to their regular room. Another recently returned from a trip to the emergency room and is also under 14-day quarantine.
Parker provided a three-month comparison of direct care and overtime incentive pay. The December through February comparison showed daily average costs decreasing from $6,444.55 to $4,103.48 over that period. The costs for outside agency help also declined. Parker commended Director of Nursing Tierna Adair for her work on scheduling to have adequate staff with more regular employees doing the work and fewer agency people required.
April will not look so good, Parker said. Any staff members with fever or cough won’t be allowed to work so there will be more overtime.
The nursing home has started their own nurse training program, and seven individuals have taken the nurse aide training. They will be taking the qualifying test when the state starts doing those again. Because of the governor’s orders, they have been approved to begin working without certification.
Parker briefly went over finances, stating in February the convalescent home had $250,000 in total operating revenue and $288,000 in total expenses for the loss of $32,000. The year-to-date loss was $89,859.
Parker said some of the reason for that loss occurred in October when Medicare switched to new reporting requirements for skilled nursing. The system being used at Share Convalescent was being phased out by the software company so a new electronic health records system had to be chosen. No new skilled nursing patients were accepted during that time.
Parker said also toward the end of December and into January they decided to reduce their population and not take on new patients unless they had adequate staff to meet those needs. If the facility goes over 48 residents, they have to provide more direct care hours. “We felt it was in our better interest not to have to bring in the extra agency staff and see fewer patients. That has also caused us to have a decrease in month-to-month revenue,” he said.
Regarding extra expenses for COVID-19, Parker said they had some but most of their personal protective equipment (PPE) came from the medical emergency response center from the strategic national stockpile.
The AHA approved creating a money market account at Community Bank for convalescent home refurbishment with Kandice Allen, Kelly Parker and Jason Gaisford as authorized signers. Parker said this was passed by the board last fall, but the new action included additional information required to set up the account. It is the expectation of Medicaid that this account be used to pay staff and enhance the facility. One dollar per resident day is to be deposited in the account out of operating revenue. From the start in October 2019 through April, the amount to be deposited into the account is $10,249.
The Homestead
Kristi Moorman reported The Homestead isn’t taking new residents at present because of the quarantine. The retirement home is following the same guidelines on barring visitors as those observed by nursing homes. This means the salad bar has been shut down in the dining room, and no activities have been scheduled except bingo. Other activities such as playing cards would require residents to be closer than six feet from each other.
So far, The Homestead has had three people in quarantine. Two left the facility for the emergency room and were confined to their rooms upon their return. The other moved in from Missouri. Currently no one is in quarantine.
The Homestead had one resident scheduled to leave at the end of April who had only been at the facility for surgery recovery. Another is waiting for a two bedroom apartment.
Moorman thanked the community for their “amazing support” during this difficult time. She also reported that Steve Madrid, PA, made home visits for two patients at The Homestead.
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