Task force: Don't close Wyo. Retirement Center

CHEYENNE – The final fate of the Wyoming Retirement Center in Basin remains up in the air, but one thing is certain: It’s not closing anytime soon.

That was made clear Tuesday by the Legislature’s Task Force on Department of Health Facilities. Members unanimously agreed that, while they still will explore different ownership scenarios for the center, nobody wants to see it shut down.

The panel is expected to deliver a final report with its recommendations to the Legislature next year.

The vote followed discussion Tuesday about whether the state itself should continue owning and operating the Retirement Center. It is one of two facilities in the state that cares for elderly patients with mental health, dementia and other high-level medical needs.

Among its responsibilities, the task force has been charged with looking into various options, including: retaining ownership of the center but leasing the operations out; transferring it to a willing hospital district; or selling it outright to a private nonprofit or for-profit company.

Franz Fuchs is a policy analyst with the Wyoming Department of Health. He went over those scenarios Tuesday, though he did not give any recommendation as to which idea was the best going forward.

But he did note that if the state continues to own and operate the center, a recent increase in its Medicaid compensation rate means its revenues soon will catch up with – and possibly exceed – costs.

Health Department Director Tom Forslund added, “With the new rate implemented starting July 1 of this calendar year, that revenue has now increased for this facility. … I don’t think there will need to be a subsidy from the state’s general fund for the operation of this facility going forward.”

Fuchs added that if the state was to transfer ownership of the center to the nearby South Big Horn Hospital District, it could be a natural fit. Fuchs said the district already operates the nearby Bonnie Bluejacket Memorial Nursing Home, just five miles north of the center.

But Rep. Elaine Harvey, R-Lovell, said the last time lawmakers reached out to the South Big Horn District, administrators said they were not interested in taking over the Retirement Center.

As far as selling it off entirely, Fuchs said the facility is in good shape with no need for major capital upgrades. He noted the idea has surfaced several times over the last two decades but never was carried out.

Task force chairman Sen. Dan Dockstader, R-Afton, said the question legislators need to ask themselves is whether the state should bear the responsibility of caring for all the patients housed at the center.

Dockstader said only about 20 percent of the patients are considered hard to place into private-sector nursing homes or are older psychiatric patients whose severe mental illness requires specialized housing.

As for the rest, Dockstader asked whether the center is “a service that can be provided by the private sector, or is it the state’s responsibility to be in the long-term care provider business?

“Do we lease it out to another entity and get it out of the state’s hands?” he added. “There are a lot of options there, but the root question is: Is it the state’s responsibility to be in the nursing home business?”

Forslund countered that the state needs to maintain a “safety net” facility, not only for the most severe patients but for those elderly patients who are emergency cases.

“We get calls where on a Friday afternoon … somebody needs a place and they can’t find a private nursing home that’s willing to take them,” he said. “We have to have a facility if we say as a state it’s our responsibility to provide safety net services for this elderly population.”

He added that some elderly patients are already at the State Hospital in Evanston, taking up beds needed for people involuntarily detained due to mental health crises. He said cutting all but the most-severe cases from the Retirement Center would only make the situation worse.

“If we are to move this elderly population out of the State Hospital, it has to go somewhere,” Forslund said.