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NURSING HOME ABOUT TO CHANGE HANDS
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 -- 9:59 am
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
 After more than 55 years of continuous ownership, Neillsville’s only skilled nursing home will change hands tonight.
Memorial Medical Center started the nursing home in 1964.
At midnight tonight, Grant Thayer will officially take over ownership of the facility.
Memorial Medical Center CEO Scott Polenz says the sale of the facility, which employs 66 and has 61 residents, is about nine months in the making.
He says they wouldn’t have made the move unless they thought Thayer would be a good fit for the area.
"He's an independent entrepreneur. He owns four nursing homes in the Midwest, in Minnesota and Wisconsin," Polenz says. "He is expanding his nursing home presence in Wisconsin with the purchase of ours, and he may be purchasing another one in the next few months."
After midnight (Thursday morning), the nursing home will no longer be named Memorial Medical Center Health and Rehab, it will be called Neillsville Care and Rehab.
All the employees will keep their jobs and base pay, but their benefits will change. There will also be changes to how the facility is operated, but the residents shouldn’t notice them.
"They shouldn't. It's going to be the same nurses, the same doctors, the same therapists, the same houskeepers, dietary, maintenance. The same people are going to be taking care of them," he explains. "The employees are going to see some changes."
The nursing home has been losing around $1-million a year because of a failing government reimbursement formula, according to Polenz.
Around 70% of their residents are on Medicaid. MMC loses about $60 per day on Medicaid residents.
MMC has operated the nursing home since 1964 and are reimbursed based on 1964 rates. The new owners will be reimbursed based on current costs.
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