Center for Governmental Research, Inc.

As recently as 2005, more than 40 counties outside New York City owned and operated public nursing homes containing some 9,900 bed, accounting for about 10% of residential nursing home beds in New York State.

These public nursing homes served as a safety net for many indigent elderly, individuals with disabilities, and hard-to-place residents needing institutional care. Declining revenues and rising costs, however, have led to a recent sharp decline in county-owned public nursing homes. No one currently knows how many of the remaining counties with public nursing homes are in danger of closing or transferring ownership of their public homes or has looked at the consequences of shifting beds from the public to private sectors. This enabled the Center for Government Research, Inc. (CGR) to gather and document information for State policymakers and for those counties grappling with decisions regarding the future of their nursing homes.

With support from NYHealth, CGR identified the important consequences of shifting nursing home beds from the public sector to the private sector, in order to determine public policy implications for New York’s nursing home system. Under this grant CGR 1) documented the results of previous decisions to close, sell, or maintain county nursing homes; 2) determined relevant impacts on the safety net for vulnerable populations; 3) identified counties at greatest likelihood of closing or selling their public nursing homes; 4) provided data-driven policy guidance to the State and to counties deciding the future of their nursing homes in coming years; and 5) recommended whether and how State policy should be affected in the future.

Read the report associated with this grant, “The Future of County Nursing Homes in New York State.”