A facility providing mental health services plans to legally separate some of its operations, in anticipation of changes at the state level. The Bowen Center took over operations of the Shady Rest Home from Marshall County in 2002.
CEO Kurt Carlson told the County Commissioners last week that it appears the facility and others like it will soon be designated “institutions for mental disease.” “What impact that has on Bowen Center is part of the way we serve the clients is through treatment services for which we get paid by Medicaid,” he said. “The way Medicaid rules are, if you are an IMD, an institution for mental disease, you cannot bill Medicaid for those services.”
As a solution, Bowen Center plans to set up a legally-separate corporation to operate the Shady Rest Home. “So our intent is to move the property and the patients and the contract with the state for services to those individuals from Bowen Center to Shady Rest Home, Inc.,” Carlson explained.
He said the change in legal ownership should allow Medicaid billing to continue through Bowen Center, while the rest would take place through Shady Rest Home. “The intent is to continue to serve the clients and maintain Shady Rest in operation, maintain the property,” he said. “There will be a contract with Bowen Center, and Bowen Center will, in fact, ‘sell’ staff, services, accountants, billing, administration, all that to the Shady Rest Home, Inc., so that it can continue to operate, but it’s a separate corporation from Bowen Center.”
The Marshall County Commissioners voted to allow the process to move ahead. If it proceeds as planned, the actual changeover would likely occur sometime in January.
