Oklahoma Nursing Homes Struggle With Prices Of COVID-19 Equipment

Nursing homes across the country are struggling to stay afloat during COVID-10, amid rising prices for protective equipment.

Some nursing homes said they're paying a thousand percent more for the equipment, which might force some centers to shut down.

Nursing home companies said they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars extra just on gear. They're afraid smaller companies won't be able to survive.

There are 300 nursing homes across Oklahoma, each caring for some of the state's most at-risk people -- but trying to stop the spread of COVID-19, or prevent a positive case at all, can be costly.

"The mark-up right now is up to a thousand percent more than what you would usually pay," Diakonos Group COO Kimberly Green said.

Diakonos Group owns 20 nursing homes in Oklahoma. Green said they've had to spend about half a million dollars more on protective gear than they usually would, just in the last three weeks alone.

"That just shows we went from just basically needing to buy gloves all the times, and making sure we had stock of the other, to every single day needing almost head-to-toe," Green said.

A New York Times report said the financial outlook for the 15,400 nursing homes in the U.S. was grim before COVID-19. Now, nursing home advocates say the industry may need $15 billion from the federal government to ride out the crisis.

Other nursing home executives in Oklahoma, like Brandon Morgan at Professional Long Term Care Services, said they're worried about the smaller nursing homes which don't have the resources for significant price increases.

"It could shut providers down, if there's not some sort of reimbursement," Morgan said.

It's why they're hoping the state and federal government will step in to give the industry some relief.

"Whether that is Medicare or Medicaid, some sort of disaster fund that can just help us," Green said.

Nursing homes also said they hope the Oklahoma Attorney General Office will step in to prevent some of the mark-ups on PPE.