Nursing Home Providers

• Covers institutional care for recipients who are unable to remain at home or in the community.
• The quality of nursing home care is regulated by Health Facility Regulation, a division of the Georgia Department of Community Health.
• Reimbursement: Per diem rates are calculated from standardized cost reports. Allowable costs are determined using department policy, federal principles of reimbursement and audits of cost reports. Effective July 1, 2007, the 2006 cost reports are used to compute reimbursement rates.

In FY 2008:

• Nursing facility services totaled $1,152.6 million and accounted for 18 percent of all Medicaid benefits expenditures.

• Georgia Medicaid paid for nursing home care for 40,887 recipients, which equals two percent of all Medicaid recipients. Medicaid pays for the care of approximately 74 percent of all nursing home residents in the state.

• Per recipient expenditures averaged $26,552 for intermediate or skilled care in a nursing home and $89,347 for an intermediate care facility for people with mental retardation. (Per recipient averages do not represent the average annual cost of nursing home care, since some recipients receive care for less than a full year.)