Christine Jordan Sexton
Days after a joint budget committee agreed to allocate another $100 million to Florida nursing homes, a powerful House Republican filed legislation to require skilled nursing facilities to file audited financial reports with state Medicaid officials.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Jay Trumbull filed a bill Monday that would require nursing facilities to file audited financial statements within 120 days of the end of their fiscal year.
While the long-term care industry worried last Session that an audited financial report would drive up costs for nursing homes, this year may be different.
In a statement to Florida Politics Tuesday, Florida Health Care Association spokesperson Kristen Knapp said her group supports the bill.
The association “welcomes working with the House toward greater transparency efforts that will bring more visibility to the financial challenges that have plagued nursing centers over the last 20 plus months,” Knapp said in a statement.
Moreover, she said the information can also be used to help inform discussions on the challenges going forward for the nursing home industry.
Unlike hospitals, which have been required to submit audited financial reports to the state, there wasn’t a similar requirement for nursing homes. The Florida Legislature earlier this year moved to change that, though, by requiring the facilities to report audited statements.
The nursing home industry opposed the move at the time. The end result was a requirement nursing facility’s “actual financial experience” be reported to the state.
The 2021 law doesn’t define “actual financial experience,” but says it includes “expenditures, revenues, and statistical measures.” Additionally, the law notes that “such data may be based on internal financial reports that are certified to be complete and accurate by the chief financial officers of the nursing home.”
The reporting requirement applies to nursing facilities and their home offices.
The bill filed this week by Trumbull doesn’t alter the “actual financial experience” and what nursing homes can submit to the state. But the bill does amend the statutes to qualify that ultimately the “actual financial experience” for both a skilled nursing facility and its home office are audited financial statements.
