Who Decides How Much Care Costs?

Candas Schouvieller, Administrator

Oak Hills Living Center cares for those who can no longer care for themselves and we do it with great passion and dedication. Providing 24-hour care for complex medical conditions in our residents; these warm, funny and loving human beings who have lived, raised families, built businesses and contributed to the community we enjoy today. In the middle of building the future of Oak Hills we have heard comments similar to, “for what they charge they don’t need financial help.” Let’s explore how nursing home care rates are assessed and determined.

On January 1, 2016 the Minnesota Legislature enacted a new nursing facility payment system called “Value-Based Reimbursement” (VBR). Nursing facility services are bundled into a comprehensive package and DHS establishes charges for this package of services as a daily rate. Under VBR these daily rates are updated every January 1 for each nursing facility based on the individual nursing facility cost experience and quality score.

While the cost of VBR is largely paid for by the state and federal governments, privately paying residents who have the ability to pay also have to pay the full cost of their care. Minnesota is one of the few states in the country that have a rate equalization law. Under this law, nursing facilities must provide equal services to nursing facility residents, regardless of payer source, and cannot charge private paying residents more (or less) than the rate paid by the state under its medical assistance (Medicaid) program. Third party payers (including Medicare and Long-Term Care Insurance) and some single/private room rates are exempt from rate equalization. While the rates charged to private pay residents cannot be different than the Medicaid rates, the rates for individual residents will vary based on the resident’s condition and the level of care a resident needs. Under VBR each facility has a set of 50 different daily rates called Resource Utilization Groups (RUGs). The lowest RUG daily rate is currently $239.12 per day while the highest RUG daily rate is currently $581.20 per day. The statewide average nursing facility daily rate is about $284.00 as of January 1, 2021.

Minnesota requires each resident to have a Resident Assessment Instrument to be completed. Once the assessment is completed, we submit it along with supporting documentation to the Minnesota Department of Health, who in turn calculates the final RUG level which then becomes the rate billed for the residents stay.

Growing Our Tomorrow

Thank you to everyone who has pledged or donated to our capital campaign, Growing Our Tomorrow. Your commitment to Oak Hills has brought us very close to meeting our milestone goal of $1 million by May 1, 2022! While our total fundraising goal is $2.6 million, this milestone goal is both appreciated and celebrated. Thank you for your support!

The expansion of Oak Hills Assisted Living will be completed in phases followed by adding a dedicated chapel and community space in a final phase. The first phase will include both the new building which will contain 15 memory care suites and 15 enhanced assisted living suites as well as adding 8 new 1-bedroom apartments to our existing private pay assisted living. We are excited to share we are planning our groundbreaking for the week of July 18th. With so many ever-changing variables today including inflation and supply chain delays we are grateful to be at this point.

Recently, I found an article from February 22, 2003, when Oak Hills was last fundraising for $300,000. The title was, “Oak Hills facing grim year despite campaign success.” State budget cuts were looming and we continued on. We are constantly faced with challenges in this industry. If we would continue to lead in fear, we would not be where we are today. On April 5, 2022, we met virtually with Senator Gary Dahms and Representative Paul Torkelson to advocate for Oak Hills for permanent wage increases for direct care staff, among other critical needs. Bills HF 3729 and SF 3195 would dedicate $500 million to caregiver wages. Staffing all long term care facilities is critical, please contact your legislators to advocate for the changes you would like to see in our community. I am happy to report that today, April 26, 2022, the senate passed both Bills. We work diligently every day so 20 years from now our successors will reflect on our work in 2022 that meant a new future for Oak Hills.

Staff celebrate years of service in April

Employee of the Month

May Employee Anniversaries

Name	Hire Year
Jamie Kruggel	2004
Molly Fischer	2009
Megan Grams	2011
Kayla Becker	2013
Nina Beise	2015
Rachel Piotter	2016
Julia Buboltz	2018
Cassie Reed	2018
Ryann Miller	2019
Laura Steffer	2020
Kenadi Steffl	2021
Carly Achman	2021
Elsie Munson	2021
Katherine Fischer	2021
Paige Frederick	2021

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