Kansas cracks down on nursing home operators with shaky finances

The state of Kansas had to take over 22 financially struggling nursing homes last year — the most anyone connected to the industry could remember.

Officials with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services said they had no choice. Nursing home managers — most of them from out of state — had fallen behind on bills for basics like food and utilities, putting residents’ health and safety at risk.

Now the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly have come together on a plan to keep it from happening again.

Lawmakers this month passed a bill requested by the Kelly administration that will require much more financial information from people who apply for licenses to operate nursing homes.

“It gives us a better opportunity to maybe know in advance if somebody coming in is maybe in financial difficulties,” said Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee. “It’s never going to solve it (completely) but there should be fewer we have to take over in the future.”

Fifteen of the 22 homes the state had to take over last year were run by Skyline Health, a company owned by a family of investors and headquartered above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.