Florida FY03 Budget Gives $26.9M to Nursing Homes to Help Pay Insurance Costs

As part of the fiscal year 2003 budget the Florida Legislature approved on May 13, nursing homes would receive $26.9 million in Medicaid funds to help them with the cost of liability insurance, the Florida Times-Union reports. The funds come one year after state lawmakers approved a "wide-ranging" nursing home package that in part capped the amount of damages that can be awarded in lawsuits against nursing homes (Saunders, Florida Times-Union, 5/15). That package requires plaintiffs seeking higher levels of punitive damages to prove that a nursing home worker intended to harm a patient, that the home's managers knew about the problem and did not correct it and that the abuse was motivated by "unreasonable financial gain." The package also appropriated $60.4 million to boost nursing home staffing levels and increased the number of required number of care hours per patient from 1.7 per day to 2.9 by 2004 (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 5/18/01). The legislation was meant to encourage insurance companies to lower the premiums for liability coverage, but such rates "remai[n] high," as insurers "wait to see if the reforms help curb lawsuits." Some nursing homes pay more than $6,000 per bed per year in liability insurance costs, according to Erwin Bodo, chief operating officer of the Florida Association of Homes for the Aging. The additional money legislators approved this week will go to nursing homes based on factors such as the number of Medicaid beneficiaries they serve. State Rep. Nancy Argenziano (R), who criticized last year's bill and the recently approved funding increase, said that rather than giving nursing homes more money, lawmakers should require them to improve staffing and increase salaries -- factors she said would improve patient care and thus decrease the number of lawsuits filed against homes (Florida Times-Union, 5/15).