Weinberg Campus is looking for more workers.
Last month, it held a job fair at its Rosa Coplon Living Center nursing home, part of its 100-acre Getzville campus that also includes assisted living and independent senior apartments. Applicants for every department from nursing to laundry could walk in and get an interview and job offer on the same day.
Director of Nursing Tina Ford said Weinberg was looking to hire as many as 75 people to join their 400-member campus workforce.
“We're just as challenged as everybody in the industry and we're trying to attract people to come to Weinberg and help us and help the residents,” she said.
The hiring effort is part of what Weinberg officials are calling their “transformation plan.” They say the details are still being worked out, including a price tag and concrete timeline, but that it will grow their workforce and expand their medical services.
“We think there's a need in the community for some of the things we're trying to implement, and we're excited to move forward with them,” said CEO Robert Mayer.
The plan comes in wake of the nonprofit Weinberg's failed sale to Post Acute Partners, the for-profit, New York City-based company that runs the Elderwood nursing home chain.
The $47 million deal was first announced back in November 2017 and would have rebranded the campus as Elderwood at Getzville, but after waiting for approval from the New York State Department of Health for more than four years, the Weinberg board terminated it on Feb. 23.
Weinberg officials say they have no plans to find another buyer and are committed to continuing to operate the over-century-old campus as an independent nonprofit, despite financial losses in recent years and an ever-changing senior care industry.
“There's challenges,” Mayer said, “but we're committed to putting together a plan to make us a viable entity far into the future.”
The transformation plan has left unionized workers on campus cautiously optimistic after years of uncertainty regarding the sale.
“It feels like we're getting back to the way Weinberg Campus used to be, like a home,” said Darlene Gates, an administrative organizer with 1199 SEIU, which represents Weinberg’s approximately 200 nursing home workers. “It’s going to take some time to get there, but they're laying down the foundation to get us there.”
Why did the sale fall apart?
Elderwood officials declined an interview request, but in a statement last month blamed the lengthy state approval process and “regulatory backlogs” for the sale falling through.
“The regulatory approval process, which is normally protracted, was delayed even further due to the pandemic,” the statement read.
However, state health department spokesperson Jeffrey Hammond said in an email that Elderwood failed to meet the requirements to complete the sale. Elderwood had submitted numerous applications for not only the change in ownership, but additional licensees and construction and renovation projects, he added.
Hammond also dispelled the notion that the pandemic delayed the approval process, noting that Elderwood first submitted applications “years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.”
Plus, nursing home industry observers aren’t aware of any pandemic-related backlogs for nursing home ownership change.
“I haven’t heard of a logjam,” said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a New York City-based group that advocates for better nursing home care. “I mean, the [state] Public Health Planning Council meets pretty frequently. They certainly address these issues as they come up.”
However, Mollot noted that converting a nonprofit entity to a for-profit entity can be complicated in New York.
The New York State Attorney General’s Office Charities Bureau released guidancein 2018 for nonprofit nursing homes looking to sell to for-profit entities. It recommended they document whether or not they’d considered selling to another nonprofit entity and how proceeds from the sale will benefit their charitable mission.
“When you're not dissolving a charity but changing the nature of a charity, that can have different issues that go before different agencies,” Mollot said, “and that can be a very complex issue in and of itself.”
Regardless of why the sale was delayed, Mayer said Weinberg needed clarity on its future.
“As time went on, it just dragged on too long,” he said. “And it just made more sense for us to move in a different direction, refocus our efforts to remain as a not-for-profit.”
More nonprofit nursing homes are becoming for-profit
Attorney General Letitia James’ bombshell report on the state’s nursing home industry last year included a note on a “concerning” trend: for-profit companies buying up nonprofit nursing homes.
Nonprofits accounted for 40% of New York nursing homesin 2010, but by 2020 that number had dropped to just 30% percent. In fact, about 5% of New York’s non-profit homes were sold to for-profit companies every year from 2014 to 2018.
James’ report found New York’s for-profit nursing homes are disproportionately rated the lowest quality by the federal government, and have financial incentivize to transfer funds to related parties rather than invest in staffing and other resident care needs
So the failed sale of Weinberg to the for-profit Elderwood is bound to make nursing home watchdogs and resident advocates happy.
“I think that it's good that we're maintaining that not-for-profit,” Mollot said.
He notes there are certainly high-quality for-profit nursing homes and low-quality nonprofit nursing homes; Weinberg’s nursing home is rated three stars by the federal government, meaning average, while all eight of Elderwood’s Western New York nursing homes are rated average or above average.
But his group has done research that shows New York’s non-profit homes have higher average inspection ratings than for-profit homes, while providing 20% more care hours to residents.
“Overall, not-for-profits have higher staffing, they put more of the money they receive for care into resident care,” Mollot said.
Mayer said the nonprofit structure “is better for our staff and our residents and for the organization,” noting the studies that have shown nonprofit nursing homes in general provide better care.
“The big difference is that there are no shareholders, so any surplus that we regenerate is put right back into our organization to provide more services or to provide more benefits for our staff,” he said. “It's a different model, it's a different way of thinking, and we just think the not-for-profit model is the better model at this time.”
New York recently implemented its long-delayed nursing home profit cap earlier this month, which places a 5% cap on profits and mandates at least 70% of revenue be spent on care. Meanwhile, a billthat would ban the creation of more for-profit nursing homes passed the state Assembly last month.
What the transformation plan entails
Nell Robinson has been a licensed practical nurse at Weinberg Campus for 25 years. As a union delegate, she received plenty of questions from her coworkers over the last four years about the pending sale.
“People coming to you every day asking, ‘When are we going to sell? When are we going to sell?’” she recalled. “The rumors about the pending sale did have a lot of people nervous.”
Workers’ reaction to the sale being terminated was mixed, Robinson said.
“A lot of people were afraid because they were thinking, ‘OK, if the sale is not going to go through, then Weinberg is just going to shut down, period,’” she said.
But Weinberg officials not only don’t plan to close — they plan to hire more health care workers like Robinson.
They say their transformation plan includes increasing the number of clinical staff positions while also replacing workers who left due to the pandemic and, in some cases, because of the pending sale.
Weinberg is potentially more attractive to workers amid the ongoing health care labor shortage. The campus’ recent two-year contract agreement with 1199 SEIU offers thehighest nursing home wages in Western New York, according to the union. The implementation of the contract was reportedly delayed for several weeks due to Elderwood.
Last month’s job fair was also meant to entice prospective workers about the campus’ atmosphere.
“Weinberg has been part of this community for over 100 years, so we've demonstrated that caring to the community, to the residents and to the employees,” said Vice President of Human Resources Louise Vella. “It's really reinforcing the vigorous effort to help people understand that they have a place here.”
One of the potential hires was Keli Mellender. After working in home care and sometimes paying for her own travel, Mellender was intrigued at the prospective of working in a nursing home setting.
"It's good to have a place just to go right to and just to do your whole eight hours of service, then return home instead of going from place to place," she said.
Following the job fair and other recruiting efforts, Mayer said they’ve hired about 50 people in recent weeks.
“So we have a little ways to go,” he said. “We're still trying to fill some clinical positions, certified nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses, [registered nurses]. So that's our focus right now, but we've seen good progress and I'm hopeful we'll continue that going forward in the next few weeks.”
Other parts of the transformation plan include creating a dialysis center on campus that would treat both Weinberg residents and patients from hospitals.
“Hospitals sometimes end up with patients that need dialysis care that have nowhere to go because there aren't enough beds available. And typically someone who is in our facility who needs dialysis will be transported to a dialysis center, which is very inconvenient and just a hassle,” Mayer said. “So I think doing it on site will be a major plus for us.”
But Weinberg has been dealing with financial losses. A review of its subsidiaries’ most recent publicly available 990 forms shows a nearly $3 million deficit, with $43.5 million in revenue and $46.4 million in expenses. The campus nursing home alone lost roughly $1 million every year from 2011 to 2019.
Mayer said those disclosures don’t tell the whole story, noting that as a nonprofit they simply strive to “break even” and can “absorb” slight losses. However, he acknowledged that, between the pandemic, low Medicaid reimbursement from the state, staffing shortages and new regulations, it's a tough time for the industry.
He said they're applying for state capital grants to fund their transformation plan, including specifically to create the dialysis center, and are working with a consultant “experienced in internal restructurings.” They also plan to work with other nonprofit providers while remaining independent.
“I'm pretty sure that we’ll be in a very good place in the next five years,” Mayer said.
Robinson would like to see the campus nursing home regain the five-star rating it once had.
“I would love to be a part of that to say, ‘I was a part of it when we weren't so great and then I was a part of it when we were rebuilding and great again,’” she said. “That's what I want to be here for.”
Editor's note: Elderwood is a supporter of WBFO's Older Adults News Desk.
