Laura
09-02-2010, 04:57 PM
from Poughkeepsie Journal:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100620/NEWS01/6200374/1006/At--4-556-a-day--N.Y.-disabled-care-No.-1-in-nation
At $4,556 a day, N.Y. disabled care No. 1 in nation
Call it the Rolls-Royce of institutions for the mentally disabled. Call it the pot of gold at the end of the Medicaid rainbow. Call it anything, but don't call it cheap.
Because the state and federal government pay $4,556 per day for each of 152 residents at the former Wassaic Developmental Center in eastern Dutchess County, as well as for the 1,265 residents of eight other aging and inefficient campuses around the state. That's $1.7 million a year per person — the highest Medicaid rate in the nation by one university study and four times the next-highest facility cost.
State officials admit the actual cost of care is about one-third of the rate and that the hundreds of millions in leftover cash underwrite other state programs for the developmentally disabled. That Medicaid largesse, they say, has turned a system that was plagued by scandal in the 1970s into perhaps the best in the country today.
Few dispute that New York has a superior system — and an expensive one. But a Poughkeepsie Journal investigation of developmental-center rates also found:
• The closing of the nine state institutions, once a certainty, has been delayed for a decade as reimbursement rates have soared; closing would shut off a gushing faucet of cash in a state dogged by deficits.
• There has been little official scrutiny or oversight of institutional spending and rates, which generate more than $2 billion a year from the state and federal government.
• Nearly $36 million was spent to rehabilitate Wassaic's aging infrastructure since 2000 — money that feeds into higher reimbursement rates at a center that, on paper at least, is scheduled to close.
Prompted by Journal inquiries, federal Medicaid officials said they would review the program, while the state Medicaid inspector general, among others, expressed astonishment at the nearly $5,000 per diem, a little-known secret in state government. The rate at a developmental center in Southbury, Conn., by comparison, is $952.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100620/NEWS01/6200374/1006/At--4-556-a-day--N.Y.-disabled-care-No.-1-in-nation
At $4,556 a day, N.Y. disabled care No. 1 in nation
Call it the Rolls-Royce of institutions for the mentally disabled. Call it the pot of gold at the end of the Medicaid rainbow. Call it anything, but don't call it cheap.
Because the state and federal government pay $4,556 per day for each of 152 residents at the former Wassaic Developmental Center in eastern Dutchess County, as well as for the 1,265 residents of eight other aging and inefficient campuses around the state. That's $1.7 million a year per person — the highest Medicaid rate in the nation by one university study and four times the next-highest facility cost.
State officials admit the actual cost of care is about one-third of the rate and that the hundreds of millions in leftover cash underwrite other state programs for the developmentally disabled. That Medicaid largesse, they say, has turned a system that was plagued by scandal in the 1970s into perhaps the best in the country today.
Few dispute that New York has a superior system — and an expensive one. But a Poughkeepsie Journal investigation of developmental-center rates also found:
• The closing of the nine state institutions, once a certainty, has been delayed for a decade as reimbursement rates have soared; closing would shut off a gushing faucet of cash in a state dogged by deficits.
• There has been little official scrutiny or oversight of institutional spending and rates, which generate more than $2 billion a year from the state and federal government.
• Nearly $36 million was spent to rehabilitate Wassaic's aging infrastructure since 2000 — money that feeds into higher reimbursement rates at a center that, on paper at least, is scheduled to close.
Prompted by Journal inquiries, federal Medicaid officials said they would review the program, while the state Medicaid inspector general, among others, expressed astonishment at the nearly $5,000 per diem, a little-known secret in state government. The rate at a developmental center in Southbury, Conn., by comparison, is $952.