Commissioners approve $2M boost to Centre Care, urge community to support nonprofit

The Centre County Commissioners voted Tuesday to allocate the county’s final $2 million in American Rescue Plan funds to Centre Care, and issued a plea to the community to support the nonprofit to ensure it continues into the future.

The $2 million will be received in up to three installments — $900,000 up front, $500,000 upon the completion of milestones related to marketing and the setting up of a charitable giving organization, and an additional $600,000, provided that the county goes through with the purchase of a 14-acre lot on Centre Care’s property off the Benner Pike.

“On behalf of Centre Care, we’d like to thank you for the grant and the opportunity to partner with Centre County. It means a great deal to Centre Care, our staff, our residents and the members of our community,” Andrew Naugle, Centre Care’s administrator, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We look forward to showing you, and the members of the community, over the next few months and years what these dollars can do to help us continue our mission to take care of our residents, and give exceptional care to our residents regardless of their financial means.”

While Centre County’s $2 million allocation to Centre Care will likely keep the nonprofit afloat for around two more years, the large financial contribution will also be the county’s last to the nursing home.

The commissioners called on all residents, businesses and organizations across the county to provide increased charitable support to the nursing home to not only keep it in business for years to come, but to also keep its crucial Medicaid beds right where they are.

“We’re fortunate that we had those (ARP funds) to be able to invest into Centre Care, but we need the community to continue that investment over the long term because this is a really crucial institution to maintain in our community,” Commissioner Amber Concepcion said.

The initial $900,000 will go toward the nonprofit’s new Neighbors Supporting Neighbors Fund that’s meant to “help offset the cost of care for residents who do not have the financial resources to fully cover their residence at Centre Care,” per the nursing home’s website.

Though some residents are able to pay for their care on their own, others aren’t so fortunate, and with reimbursement from government programs like Medicaid not covering the full cost gap, Centre Care’s new fund can come in and help cover the rest.

“Health care supplies could be some of the items that we could be using that money for,” Naugle said. “It could be anything that a resident could need in a day — things you don’t think about like toothbrushes and toilet paper. We take those things for granted, but if we don’t have the funding we need to buy all those things, we need those ... what you need at home, most residents need that, plus more here.”

About 75% of Centre Care’s 240 beds are designated for Medicaid patients, making it the largest Medicaid-accepting nursing home in Centre County, Naugle said. The average cost gap for Medicaid patients at Centre Care sits at $125 per person, per day.

While Medicaid reimbursements have been increased by legislators in recent years, the increase still hasn’t been enough to fully support the costs of long-term care for residents in Medicaid-accepting nursing homes across Pennsylvania. It has led to the spread of a “crisis” in nursing homes, Commissioner Mark Higgins said.

“Nonprofit facilities that once provided Medicaid-approved skilled nursing beds have closed, or have been sold to private corporations, and once these beds are lost, they will never return,” he said. “This crisis is now at our doorstep. The core issue is simple yet devastating — Medicaid reimbursement rates for skilled nursing care are too low to cover the actual cost of providing the care, no matter how efficient you are. This has been an ongoing problem for almost two decades.”

The county’s allocation to Centre Care came after about a year of discussions with the nonprofit’s board, which took over ownership of the nursing home from the county in 2013. The facility was turned it into a nonprofit and dropped its former name, “Centre Crest,” before moving to its new building at 250 Persia Road from its Howard Street location in 2021.

The discussions included several “pointed questions” from the commissioners, and according to Higgins, a turnaround consultant — a professional meant to help diagnose issues with a financially-stressed business or organization — was brought into the mix at one point.

“At this time, we do not project a closure in the next year, but again, as the years progress on and the need for Medicaid residents increases in the community, there could be closures in the future or in years to come if (Centre Care) would potentially not have funding from the community and from individuals like the commissioners,” Naugle said.

Commissioner Steve Dershem said that “the future is yet to be written” when it comes to the 14-acre lot the county intends to purchase from Centre Care. For now, the county’s role is to continue advocating for Centre Care and its services, he said.

“I think the mission and the goal of what Centre Care does is that important to our community,” Dershem said. “We do not have a choice but to make sure that we have adequate facilities for our seniors whenever they’re in need. I would say that this is as high of a calling as anything that we could get involved in right now, and this is an incredible opportunity for us to make sure that this facility thrives well into the future.”