New Hampshire nursing homes file complaint seeking $4.4m in Medicaid reimbursements

About 60 of New Hampshire's 78 nursing homes have signed a complaint alleging that the state Department of Health and Human Services owes them $4.4 million for care provided to Medicaid beneficiaries since 2002, the Concord Monitor reports.

The nursing homes filed the complaint last month after health department Commissioner John Stephen told state lawmakers that there was a surplus in the department's $192 million nursing home budget.

The complaint alleges that Medicaid reimbursements are lower than the cost of providing care and that payments over the past several years have been lower than expected.

John Poirier, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, said, "You can't tell the nursing home providers that you don't have enough money to pay them the full rate while at the same time you're telling the Legislature you have excess money in the account."

Doug McNutt, chief of the Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services, said the surplus is the result of a decrease in the number of nursing home residents, adding that Medicaid reimbursement rates have increased in the past several years.

Pamela Walsh, a spokesperson for Gov. John Lynch (D), said the governor "believes the state should be meeting its commitment to nursing homes and taxpayers and not shortchanging them" (Concord Monitor, 9/21).