Us Michigan elder law attorneys talk. One of the growing trends that we are seeing is that Michigan nursing homes with dual certified beds are reserving those for Medicare patients only. Michigan can only push the use of a dually-certified bed for a Medicaid resident if the circumstance arises from a current resident transitioning from private-pay or Medicare to Medicaid as the source of payment.
Medicaid and Medicare participating nursing homes are not obligated to make one of their beds available to any new potential resident. If they have a current Medicare resident who is/becomes edible for Medicaid coverage of their long-term care during their stay, they can’t discharge or transfer simply because they’d rather “reserve” their dually-certified beds for future higher-reimbursed Medicare admissions. Declining to admit a Medicaid-eligible applicant to a dually-certiied bed in the hopes of filling it with a yet to be identified Medicare eligible admission, whether we like it or not, remains permissible.
We have a state on this at MCL 333.21718(2), which reads: “(2) As a condition of skilled nursing facility certification, a nursing home shall obtain concurrent certification under title 19 [Medicaid]…for each bed which is certified to provide skilled care under title 18 [Medicare]. Skilled care certification shall not be renewed unless the requirements of this subsection are met.”
However, given this, nursing homes are still trying to argue that there are “no nursing home beds available” to current residents, at times.
Thank you so much for this post. I have been struggling to find the law/truth about dually certified beds and get such conflicting information.