Medicaid Payments Do Not Cover Nursing Homes’ Full Cost Of Care

For about 40% of nursing homes, Medicaid per diem payments covered 80% or less of their estimated daily Medicaid costs in 2019. For 52% of facilities, Medicaid per diem payments covered 80% to 100% of costs. The remainder (8%) received Medicaid payments that exceeded their costs. On average, Medicaid payment rates for the average or median nursing home covered about $0.82 per every dollar of reported cost nursing homes incurred caring for Medicaid residents.

Not-for-profit nursing homes had the lowest Medicaid payment-to-cost ratio (0.76) compared to for-profit nursing homes (0.83) and government . . .