Nursing Home Profit Prior to Vote

[UPDATE: Champaign County Health Care Consumers weighed in prior to the vote asking people to oppose beginning the process to sell the Nursing Home:

Tonight, the County Board is holding a Special Meeting at 6 p.m. to focus on the Champaign County Nursing Home (CCNH) and to approve the release of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for sale or disposal of the CCNH. Please see below for information about the RFP and why it should be opposed, and also how to take action. Also, at the bottom of this message, there are a number of articles regarding for-profit nursing homes and the likelihood that YOU will end up in a nursing home – these articles are important for understanding why we need to fight so hard to protect the CCNH...

Direct link to the full e-mail here. ]

Voting on selling the Nursing Home will come on the heals of a possible turnaround for the facility that was reported in the N-G today:

Debt-laden county nursing home reports rare profitable month

November was the first month last year that the Champaign County Nursing Home reported net income, members of the county's nursing home advisory board were told Monday night.

The county-owned home showed a profit of $30,000 in November, an improvement from a $66,574 loss it incurred in October. Prior monthly losses were in six figures.

And the home's average daily census inched up to about 138, although it had fallen back slightly to 136 on Monday. The nursing home has 243 beds.

"Everything is moving in the right direction," said Suzanne Koenig, the president of SAK Management Services, the Northfield-based firm that has been paid about $48,000 a month to manage the home.

"Things are becoming operationally viable," added nursing home board member Cathy Emmanuel.

But the nursing home still has tremendous debts, including more than $2.4 million it owes to various county funds, according to a Dec. 12 report by the county auditor. The facility also owed $2.7 million to outside vendors, the auditor said.

The county board is expected to vote tonight on a package of nursing home-related items, including whether to advertise for requests from private companies to purchase the home on the east side of Urbana. The package also includes a plan to issue tax anticipation warrants to help the facility's finances.

...

And board members agreed to move the starting time of future nursing home board meetings to 6:30 p.m. to accommodate nursing home residents and family members who sometimes have to forego their dinner to make the 6 p.m. meetings.

Just to be clear that time move is for nursing home board meetings, not tonight's special county board meeting on the County Nursing Home. The special meeting is still at 6pm. I had to re-read that a couple times just to make sure I was getting that right.