Nearly 50 years after joining the nursing home business, and four months after telling The Monitor about why he wants to leave it, Phil Cyr is preparing to get out.
Cyr has signed an agreement with Maine-based nursing home chain First Atlantic Healthcare to sell both his family’s nursing homes in Presque Isle and Caribou, although he said it could take four to six months for the state to approve the final sale.
Cyr said his overwhelming feeling about the deal is “relief.”
“It’s a very challenging business and there’s a fair amount of stress involved,” he said.
The Cyr family closed Presque Isle Rehab and Nursing Center over the summer because it was “hemorrhaging” money due to staffing problems, Phil Cyr told The Maine Monitor in August. The facility will remain closed until First Atlantic takes over, he said.
Cyr said he will stay on with Caribou Rehab and Nursing Center as president until the sale, but he already transferred administration of the facility to Doug Hise last year.
Cyr first started at Caribou Rehab and Nursing, working for his father, in 1976. He says running 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 wished the public understood about the nursing home industry, Cyr replied: “We’re not a bunch of fat cats getting rich. I mean, that’s evident with the fact that so many have closed. That may have been the situation 40, 50 years ago, but it’s significantly changed since then.”
Maine is in the process of updating its nursing home reimbursement rate methodology for MaineCare, the state version of Medicaid, which is intended to reduce administrative burden and set up a system that rewards facilities for performance on certain quality measures. The new rates take effect this year.
Lindsay Hammes, spokesperson for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said nursing homes received estimated rates on Nov. 22, but the actual rates will vary depending on the needs of residents at any given time.
Nationally, the nursing home industry is pressuring the incoming Trump Administration to roll back staffing requirements for nursing homes that were finalized this year and are set to be phased in over three years. (The federal government regulates nursing homes, but the state sets reimbursement rates for MaineCare.)
If that happens, Maine still has its own staffing requirements for nursing homes, including minimum staff ratios of at least one direct-care worker for every five residents during the day; one for every 10 residents in the evening; and one for every 15 residents overnight.
