Additional funding to maintain staffing at South Dakota’s assisted living communities and nursing homes is needed to increase the number of residents those facilities can serve, according to the state.
South Dakota’s Department of Human Services asked the state legislature’s joint committee on appropriations earlier this month for an additional $26 million in fiscal year 2025 to help increase and maintain staffing levels in the state’s 160 assisted living communities and 96 nursing homes.
The budget increase would help the state reach its targeted provider reimbursement rate, the department said. A bill introduced last year to increase the state’s portion of its Medicaid reimbursement share to providers failed.
Jan. 1, a 2023 rate study for assisted living services prepared by Guidehose for the South Dakota Department of Human Services, Medicaid and State Long Term Services and Supports found that the state would require an additional $4.47 million in state and federal dollars — a 24.8% increase — to reimburse providers at the benchmark rates identified in the report. When considering the federal medical assistance percentage, the state share would be $1.99 million.
The objective of the study was to develop a rate methodology that could enhance provider-reported information, allowing sustainable rates to be developed into the future.
“We are hopeful, due to the assisted living rate methodology study this past summer, that the South Dakota legislature supports the findings of the study and considers additional funding to support our assisted living providers,” South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations Chief Operating Officer Tammy Hatting told McKnight’s Senior Living.
