Jordan certainly understands the realities of tight finances. His own facility, Beadles Nursing Home in Alva, which was started by his great-grandmother in 1917, is currently in the process of merging with the only other nursing facility in that town, the Share Convalescent Home. The goal is for the single nursing home that will remain in Alva to be more secure in its own future.
According to Steve Buck, the chief executive officer at Care Providers Oklahoma, the state’s largest trade association representing nursing homes, financial pressures along with a new and controversial federal staffing mandate, could force more care facilities to close, especially in rural, underserved parts of the state. He said no fewer than nine have closed in the last couple of years, including facilities in Vinita and Sapulpa. “We don’t survey as to members’ specific financial situations, but what I would tell you is that it is fair to say that at least one-third of the buildings in the state see significant, persistent challenges related to their ongoing ability to provide care, (and) if this (federal) mandate goes into effect, that number will escalate dramatically,” he said.
Many of the current financial stresses facing nursing homes can be traced to how much facilities are reimbursed by the government for their care of Medicaid patients. A typical nursing home in Oklahoma has around 80% Medicaid residents, Buck said. Some are 100% Medicaid.
A blending of state and federal program funding allows for nursing homes in Oklahoma to be reimbursed at a rate of $244.78 per day per Medicaid patient. An increase in the daily rate took effect this week after state lawmakers earlier this year supported $30 million in additional funding for the Medicaid program.
Even with the increase, though, the rate doesn’t cover the daily costs of caring for Medicaid patients, estimated by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority at $269.22 for fiscal year 2025. “Going into the legislative session, the gap between cost and reimbursement was about $44 a day.
The Legislature passed enough funding to cut that effectively in half,” Buck said. “There is reason to be optimistic from the standpoint of the Legislature’s acknowledgement of the need to invest in these services, (but) the gap between reimbursement and costs keeps me up at night, because I know how many of our buildings need that reimbursement to be at cost.” Another serious challenge looms.
In April, the federal government announced new minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes, which currently are well out of reach, especially in rural communities. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts “For Oklahoma nursing homes to come into compliance with this federal mandate, it would require about 800 new RNs working specifically in long-term care,” Buck said. “We are all interested in lifting the quality of care for our seniors.
I believe at some level the federal proposal is well intentioned, but the manner in which they are trying to walk down this path is unattainable, requiring us to hire staff that are not there with resources we don’t have.” The federal mandate is being contested, including by leaders from Oklahoma in Congress. But if it’s fully implemented in stages and if nursing homes are unable to increase their workforces to meet the new requirements, it has been estimated that more than 5,800 nursing home residents could be impacted by census reductions, Buck said.
In Alva, Jordan said a benefit of merging the town’s two nursing homes together will be that they’ll no longer have to compete for limited numbers of nurses and other staffers. If the federal mandate takes effect, though, he and his wife, Dana, the director of nurses, would find it extremely hard to meet the new requirements. Even if they could find additional nurses to hire, it would add about $250,000 on to the facility’s annual payroll costs.
Beadles Nursing Home’s patients are about 60% Medicaid beneficiaries, 5% Medicare and 35% private pay, so the facility may have more financial breathing room than some others that are more reliant on Medicaid. After the state Legislature acted to increase the Medicaid daily rate this year, Jordan said he was able to provide a raise for his employees, but finances — already tight in recent years — will remain a cause for concern. On a recent Tuesday, Jordan, who is also a pharmacist in town and works multiple jobs, got his first call about nursing home business at around 6:30 a.
m. He didn’t finish work until close to 11 that night. “We try to do a lot of the work ourselves to stretch our money out as far as we can,” he said.
The Alva nursing homes also benefit from extremely dedicated employees, he said, many who routinely work overtime to help meet the needs of patients. “I think they see it, and we tell them constantly that our mission, regardless of who it is — our residents, their family members, our staff members, vendors — is that we treat people like family,” Dana Jordan said. The closure in Guymon of Mooreland Heritage Manor left some families in that Oklahoma Panhandle town of 15,000 facing prospects of finding new nursing homes for their loved ones across state lines in either Kansas or Texas.
“That’s a very detrimental thing if a community loses its only nursing home,” Adam Jordan said. “Our people are getting older every day. That’s the scary part.
” Guymon Mayor Kim Peterson said it has, indeed, been a hardship for people in Guymon. “We are a large enough community that we need a facility like that,” he said. “Now, people have got to drive 40 miles to see mom, dad or grandma in the nursing home.
”.
