Notes on Valley Hi Meeting

A friend of McHenry County Blog attended the Valley Hi Operating Board meeting Tuesday night and sent the following notes.  The Tom is Thomas Annarella, the County Nursing Home’s Administrator.

Valley Hi

Valley Hi, McHenry County’s tax-supported nursing home northwest of Woodstock.

1. Tom’s legislative update, some reimbursement rate hike (8.1%) after ten years, getting reimbursed some dental and eyeglasses expense, some prescription standards relaxed. Talk of what impact will $10 min. wage have on lt care facilities. Some talk that federal min. wage should apply (which would devastate lt care facilities).

2. Remarks about new Centegra reporting demands. The timbre of comments was that Centegra was the big customer, VH needs to comply with demands to ‘ stay on their list’. “It’s a business obligation, not a legal obligation”

3. Changing supplier of incontinence products creating some budget/timing payment issue.

4. Emergency appropriation passed unanimously for $43,500 to fix an underground water storage tank. There was cryptic talk, but I was given to understand it isn’t leaking, it isn’t very old, it just doesn’t meet some code. Comment about whether this money was to come from contingency funds? NO! Some other fund I didn’t catch.

5. Another expenditure that was apparently in budget but the timing required discussion: $34,620 for a year of software support to Matrix company.

6. Resident/nonresident room fees discussed. Key points : nobody in state is doing it( charging different rates), and STATE’s ATTY REMINDED him that VH CANNOT restrict admission to only county residents anyway, because it accepts Medicare and Medicaid.

Remarks: there are presently only 2 non county residents. What defines county resident? Is intent to reside in the mind of the person? Residents don’t expect to be here short term. It’s like what colleges have to deal with. What private room rate is eligible? And more. Summed up as a non issue, and left to address at later meeting.

7. Reserves and (asset preservation?) : they were quite passionate about defending holding at least a 12 month reserve for operations funding.

They said now have a 20 month reserve ( I think) “and another chunk for capital”. Then a lot of cryptic talk about capital needs  and projects. There is a July 15th board address they kept mentioning.They want to make 4 key points-

  • New Asset Preservation Plan(?)
  • Tom’s capital plans and projects
  • Future use of property.
  • 8. Tax levy. Spoke of having reduced it for two years. Tom said state of Illinois was floating idea of bankruptcy to get out of Medicaid debt until someone pointed out it was illegal. More talk about responsibility to maintain 12 month reserve funds

    Next was a carefully guarded discussion about possible expansions and uses of ‘land’ ( I assume land owned and contiguous?)  Talk of consulting FGMK firm. “Public private partnership” was mentioned more than once. Tom described that if public is involved, there must be some void or need that is filled.

    Someone said they had to find a need. Somebody said maybe there’s something they could do with developmental disabilities, someone else said veterans. Assisted living was mentioned. Altzheimers was mentioned.

    Chairman asked Tom in an oblique way he’d have to find out what were talking on capital fund, is it 12, 21,, 15? ( I took it to mean they have that extra money somewhere?). Chairman said there are a lot of opportunities and options, and that ‘ we have a n asset with the land’.

    9. Tax levy. They said is has gone down from 6 to 5 1/4 to 4 1/2.  Someone asked How much more can we step,it down? Then a very confusing set of remarks about 10 different fund segregations, and it’s wrapped in the budget, and someone will have to pull it put. ” I won’t say it is a behind the scenes issue….but….is very much a ‘ staff-driven ‘ project”.

    10. Capital improvement plan. The million dollar gravel room was discussed. It is a +\- 1000 sq ft. Room in basement with a gravel floor. Thought maybe to turn into day care for staff. Odd remark, that they wanted to get on it if concrete needed to be poured ‘ while (the room) still centrally located in the building ( I took to mean building expansion intent?)?

    Then something about succession planning and rolling it into Budget meeting 15 th?

    11. ( I had heard of this before myself) Tom said this occurred at swedes  in Rockford: patient had 3 day stay at hospital before admission to lt care, presumably to be covered by Medicare. After 100 days, swedes issued letter reclassifying  patient as having been “on observational stay” rather than admitted. ( presumably this is so hospital can avoid penalties attached to Medicare ‘preventable readmissions’). This had effect of nullifying Medicare true eligibility for patient not only for stay in lt facility, but all the ancillary costs advanced by the facility on behalf of patient ( testing, physical therapy, etc). Tom  said he has staff on the alert on this issue.

    12. Tom said OSHA is going around destroying nursing homes. He said hasn’t been the case here yet due to being county home and two names I didn’t catch ( personal juice ?) . He is bring in an expert to educate people, on OSHA compliance.

    I forgot, Tom said earlier that nobody should EVER fall, for the scam of so called Medicare Replacement policy.

    13. They won some best of the fox award.

    My personal impressions

    Can’t legally limit VH admissions  to county residents, so we taxpayers are subsidizing (only 2 now, but by law unlimited) non county citizens. (Why not just sell the home to a for profit company in that case?)

    Evidently there is valuable land. (Sell it. Repay the money to taxpayers.)

    Evidently there is a pot of money that they are trying to justify keeping,

    And they are intent on some big expansion project with ‘ the land’ and they will troll around to find a ‘need’ or ‘void’ so they can get that show on the road.

    = = = = =
    The Operating Board consists of

    • Joanne Hanrahan
    • Jim Heisler
    • James Kennedy (Vice Chairman)
    • Gloria Mack
    • Peter Michling (Chairman)
    • Lynn Ryan
    • Michael Walkup

    Comments

    Notes on Valley Hi Meeting — 2 Comments

    1. The actual discussion which should be taking place by the Board and McHenry County residents is whether running a nursing home is the proper function of County government.

      The private sector can do it cheaper, more efficiently and they pay taxes.

      The cost of County government which translates into excessive real estate taxes will never be reduced until Board officials redefine the role of County government and certain non-government essential items disappear from the budget.

    2. Gloria Mack is an outstanding individual.

      She is an honest, hard working, and dedicated citizen who is truly interested in the community.

      Rarely do you find such wonderful people in public service.

      I’m glad we finally have someone who isn’t a phony politician trying to make a name for themselves.

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