South Dakota legislators this year included a ten percent increase in Medicaid funding for nursing home patients, which will be about an eighteen-million-dollar boost.
Representative Jean Hunhoff of Yankton says Governor Kristi Noem also included five million dollars in innovation grants..
Hunhoff says it is one time money…
Hunhoff, Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, says nursing homes have to change their management practices…
About a dozen nursing home have closed in recent years, most connected to the low Medicaid reimbursement rate.
