Lansing, Michigan – Michigan has tens of millions of dollars set aside to make life better in nursing homes, even though some facilities in the state still have problems with care and living conditions. The money comes from fines given to nursing facilities that don’t pass federal health and safety inspections, but a lot of it hasn’t been used.
The pool, known as the Civil Money Penalty Reinvestment Program, is supported by fines that nursing homes pay for things like not filling out paperwork correctly, not having enough staff, or significant accidents that hurt people or caused prescription errors. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gets the fines, and then some of them go back to the states to help pay for programs that make care better for residents.
The fund has been growing gradually in Michigan for years. It had a little over $17 million by the end of 2017. Seven years later, the total amount had more than risen to roughly $35.4 million. The surge has mostly been caused by penalties that are higher than the amount that nursing facilities ask for and get through grants.
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Facilities can ask for money to help projects that improve care, but they can’t use the money to offset costs that nursing homes are already mandated to pay. Grants have helped pay for staff training, arts programs, and equipment purchases since 2016, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, spending has not kept up with incoming fines.
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After the rules changed in 2023, the gap got bigger. That year, the Biden administration put severe limits on how the money might be used, saying they had concerns about unequal access across the country. The new criteria limited funds to $5,000 a year and made it impossible for facilities to get many technology-based projects that they had been looking for. Because of this, all 27 grant applications that year in Michigan, which totaled nearly $8 million, were canceled.
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Even though the state tried to get more information about the new restrictions, the fund kept growing and reached over $29.4 million by the end of 2023. In 2024, a few joint projects got over $1.8 million.
Some of these projects were meant to make residents feel less lonely and improve their quality of life. Even with those awards, the fund grew again, reaching around $32.9 million at the end of last year, with most of the money still unclaimed.