Nearly 50 years after entering the nursing home industry and four months after telling The Monitor why he wants to leave, Phil Cyr is preparing to leave.
Cyr has signed an agreement with Maine-based nursing home chain First Atlantic Healthcare to sell both of his family’s nursing homes in Presque Isle and Caribou, though he expects the state to approve the final sale in four to six months.
Cyr expressed his overwhelming feeling about the deal as “relief.”
“It’s a very challenging business and there’s a fair amount of stress involved,” he informed me.
The Cyr family closed Presque Isle Rehab and Nursing Center this summer because it was “hemorrhaging” money due to staffing issues, Phil Cyr told The Maine Monitor in August. The facility will be closed until First Atlantic takes over, he stated.
Cyr stated that he will remain president of Caribou Rehab and Nursing Center until the sale, but he already transferred facility administration to Doug Hise last year.
Cyr began working at Caribou Rehab and Nursing in 1976, for his father. He claims that operating a nursing home has become increasingly difficult since then due to complex regulations, statewide staffing shortages, and low reimbursement rates.
When asked recently what he wishes the public knew about the nursing home industry, Cyr responded, “We’re not a bunch of fat cats getting rich. I mean, that’s obvious given how many have closed. That may have been the case 40 or 50 years ago, but it has changed significantly since then.”
Maine is currently updating its nursing home reimbursement rate methodology for MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, with the goal of reducing administrative burden and establishing a system that rewards facilities for meeting certain quality standards. The new rates will take effect this year.
Lindsay Hammes, a spokesperson for the state Department of Health and Human Services, stated that nursing homes received estimated rates on November 22, but the actual rates will vary depending on the needs of residents at the time.
Nationally, the nursing home industry is pressuring the incoming Trump administration to reduce staffing requirements for nursing homes, which were finalized this year and are scheduled to be phased in over three years. (The federal government regulates nursing homes, but the state sets MaineCare reimbursement rates.)
If that happens, Maine still has its own nursing home staffing requirements, which include a minimum of one direct-care worker for every five residents during the day, one for every ten residents in the evening, and one for every fifteen residents overnight.