California company acquires Good Samaritan nursing homes in Brownsville, Harlingen

Brownsville’s Good Samaritan Society nursing home has a new owner and a new name.

Keystone Care, a Texas subsidiary of California-based Ensign Group Inc., purchased the 100-bed facility Dec. 1, renaming it Alta Vista Rehabilitation & Health Care. The company also bought Good Samaritan nursing homes in Harlingen and McAllen. The names of those facilities were changed to Veranda and Grande Terrace, respectively.

Aaron Barrus, executive director of Alta Vista, says Keystone’s business philosophy was a good fit with that of the previous owner/operator, the South Dakota-based Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, which opened the Brownsville nursing home 40 years ago.

"When Good Samaritan announced the sale of these buildings it was an open market thing, where several companies were able to bid on these buildings," Barrus says. "There were many (companies) as I understand it that bid. We were not the highest bidder, but Good Samaritan chose us as the company to carry on."

A good indicator of the easy transition of ownership is the fact that no employees have quit since Keystone took over, he says.

"Traditionally nursing homes have a high turnover rate with their staff," Barrus says. "We don’t see that here. We have people that love to be here."

As far as changes under the new ownership, Alexandra Brimer, Alta Vista’s community liason, says the Brownsville facility will expand its physical, occupational and speech therapy programs.

"The biggest change here is that we’re going to be able to offer more services to Valley residents," she says.

Barrus says Alta Vista will start bringing in "higher acuity" — patients with more difficult health problems, who require more hands-on care.

Despite the recession, which has caused many businesses to contract, Ensign Group is in a growth mode. The company’s financial health puts it in a position to improve newly acquired facilities in areas that need it. While Ensign has acquired troubled facilities around the country, the Good Samaritan homes were not in that category, Brimer says.

"They have a very good connection with the community, a very good reputation," she says.

"That’s a great reputation to walk into," Barrus says. "We want to carry that on for sure."

According to Medicare’s rating system, under Good Samaritan’s ownership the Brownsville facility received just one out of five stars in the category of "health inspections" and the same rating overall. The facility received four out of five stars, however, in the category of "quality measures."

Barrus says the plan is to keep doing what works and improve any areas that need attention.

"We’re due for our annual inspection in four to five months," he says. "There’s a window that opens up and they can come on any date in that window. We’re hoping to really shine during that time."

While Alta Vista is on relatively solid footing, uncertainty clouds the horizon in the larger sense, given the federal push toward reform, which would bring about large-scale changes to how health care is funded in the country — including tapping into the existing budget for Medicare, the federal program that pays for health care for the elderly.

"Something that’s maybe a concern not just for us but for all nursing homes and hospitals moving forward are the universal changes in health care," Barrus says. "In a skilled nursing setting, we are bringing patients in that have a Medicare benefit and they’re receiving occupational, physical or speech therapy.

"With Medicare being the payer source for that, if we see some major cuts in Medicare over the next decade, you have to ask yourself what happen in the nursing home? I’m not sure there’s an administrator out there who’s not thinking about that right now. There’s going to be some change. It’s going to be difficult."