Cunningham: I’ll fight any attempt to privatize Cedarbrook

With three newly-minted Republican nominees for county commissioner in the audience, Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham made clear Wednesday that he would fight any attempt to privatize Cedarbrook, the county nursing home.

 During the Primary campaign, all four of the GOP nominees – Scott Ott, Lisa Scheller, Vic Mazziotti and David Najarian – expressed various levels of interest in exploring privatization.

 A day after Northampton County voters approved a referendum to keep that county’s nursing home, Gracedale, Cunningham told Lehigh County commissioners at a committee meeting on Cedarbrook that comparisons between the two counties’ homes are “apples to oranges.”

A private management company,  LW Consulting, runs Cedarbrook -- which has facilities in South Whitehall Township and Fountain Hill – with a staff of about 700 county employees, most of whom are unionized. 

While Gracedale is a drain on Northampton County’s budget, Cedarbrook actually contributes to Lehigh County’s spending plan by shouldering some of the county’s general costs in management, insurance and other overhead. So, for example, a portion of the salary of Tom Muller, county director of administration, is paid by Cedarbrook revenue because he oversees the home.

“All operating costs of the facilities and debt service payments are covered by patient payments,” Cunningham said. “This is a self-sufficient operation of county government.”

Cedarbrook’s budget is $60.7 million but most of that is paid by Medicare and Medicaid. The county budgets $2.1 million for Cedarbrook but that’s more than offset by $3.8 million it receives in state and federal reimbursements. If Cedarbrook were sold, the county would have to make up the $1.7 million another way, Cunningham said. 

While the Medicare program has given Gracedale a three star rating for quality, Cedarbrook has a four star rating, out of a possible five stars. Cunningham said the difference is in the quality of the management and workforce.

“The day that we can no longer provide public nursing care for our residents in a cost effective and quality way, I’d be the first to say, let’s get out of the business,” Cunningham said. “The administration remains committed to owning and operating Cedarbrook and we would vigorously fight any effort to change that.”

Scott Ott, a GOP commissioner nominee, asked Cunningham to explain what the compelling reason was for the county to run a nursing home. 

“Not all private nursing homes accept all patients,” Cunningham said. “They often have caps on the number of the Medicare/Medicaid patients that they take.” Such patients get quality care at Cedarbrook, he said.

Mazziotti asked Terry Lopus, LW Consulting’s director of Cedarbrook, if the nursing home were turned into a private, non-profit facility with a firm like LW Consulting managing it, whether the services would diminish or residents would be turned away. Lopus said if his company managed it as a non-profit, he didn’t think it would mean a great reduction in services, but turning it into a private, for-profit venture might. He said some for-profit homes limit the number of Medicaid and Medicare patients they take.

Scheller asked to see a more detailed financial report on Cedarbrook and Commissioner William Hansell, who was running the meeting, suggested she start by looking at the budget online.

On Wednesday, commissioners are expected to vote on a new contract for LW Consulting and hear details of a tentative contract that the county negotiated with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which covers the majority of Cedarbrook employees. 

After the meeting, Mazziotti said he still thinks privatizing Cedarbrook is worth exploring and didn’t buy the argument that it would mean less care for residents in need. “Nobody’s going to be left on the street,” Mazziotti said.

Ott said they heard a lot of great things about Cedarbrook at the meeting but “every operation of county government needs to be on a regular basis reviewed and you need to determine, first of all, do we need to be in that business.”