It's something of a puzzle that occupancy is on the wane at Otsego Manor, the nursing home owned and operated by Otsego County.
Local, statewide and national trends all seem to suggest that demand for nursing home care should be rising, not falling. With each passing day, more members of the aging Baby Boom generation join the ranks of those seeking care from facilities such as the Manor.
Yet Katherine Stuligross, D-Oneonta, chairwoman of the county's Manor Committee, recently reported to the Otsego County Board of Representatives that occupancy was down to 96 percent, below the projected rate of 98 percent.
To the casual observer, that may not sound like a lot. But in a time of tight budgets, that 2 percent represents revenue that the county dearly needs.
So what is causing this drop?
It's hard to know. Manor administrator Edmond Marchi attributes the drop to a what he said was a change in policy on the part of Bassett Healthcare.
Marchi told the Manor Committee at a recent meeting that Bassett is no longer notifying patients it discharges of the Manor's services.
Bassett countered by saying that it defers to patients, and provides each patient with information about the facilities the patient requests.
Meanwhile, Rep. Donald Lindberg, R-Worcester, jumped on Marchi's report as another opportunity to push the county to get out of the nursing home business _ a position he has been advocating for some time now.
We don't know if Marchi is right about why the occupancy rates are going down. But the county needs to know, and decide what to do about it.
In October, we wrote that the county ought to follow Stuligross' suggestion and conduct a detailed study regarding the financial health of the Manor.
Along with that, we're cheered to see the Manor is ramping up its public relations efforts.
At the Manor Committee's meeting, Mary Reitz, coordinator of the Long Term Home Health Care Program, said that there are people in the county who could benefit from the Manor's program who don't do so because they think they can't afford it. Reitz said she has begun advertising locally to make people better aware of the service.
Otsego Manor is a valuable service for local residents, and one that we do not want to see threatened simply because people are unaware or uninformed about the services it provides.
In addition to Reitz's efforts, we encourage the county to study the possiblity of cost efficiencies at the Manor, and to ensure that county residents are aware of the services available to them.
Opinion
County needs answers on Manor
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