Update: April 17, 2025

In December 2024, TCM was owed over $350,000. During the December Nursing Home Committee meeting, TCM informed the Board they needed payment to continue services. In response, Scott Helms, Chair of the Board, and Tim Whalen, Chair of Finance and co-chair of the Nursing Home Committee, issued an RFP for a new billing company.

For over 2.5 years, TCM has provided extensive services beyond billing for Walnut Acres, including recruiting, clinical oversight, staff training, HR support, therapy services, reimbursement guidance, marketing, billing, and physical plant management. Their contributions have been critical to operations.

At the January 2025 County Board meeting, funding was arranged through an advance on the tax levy, despite earlier claims this was not possible. TCM expressed willingness to renegotiate its contract but claimed Scott Helms failed to relay this to the Board. On January 16, the Board hired MatrixCare for billing only, without addressing how TCM's additional responsibilities would be managed.

The list from TCM of how they have been helping and managing:

TCM full-time recruiter dedicated to keeping open positions filled. Nurses, C.N.A.s and all other positions.

Chief Clinical officer does site visits. Develops policies and procedures to keep up with all changing needs and new regulations.

Is a resource for all things clinical which come up every week.

Trains on clinical topics on all levels. Helps during IDPH surveys.

Audits charts for accuracy.

This resource should not be underestimated.

TCM H.R. Director

Helps with employee issues and keeping current with all new regulations which change often.

Great resource for payroll issues, union issues and grievances.

VP of therapy services.

Does site visits. Oversees the outsourced therapy vendor to keep them honest. Audits charts for accuracy. Trains entire staff in Alzheimer and Dementia care.  

Is the Activity department consultant also.

Director of Clinical Reimbursement.

Is involved in weekly meetings regarding correct coding for reimbursement.

Trains on proper documentation which will pass audits.

Is involved with audits of which are always present. The government and insurance companies constantly are auditing our care and documentation.

Is a conduit between nursing and the billing department.

Chief Strategy officer.

Works with admissions and marketing and reviews trends and reports.

Billing and accounting department.

Involved with everything tied to billing and collections.

Documentation needed to get residents bills approved and paid.

Coding correctly.

Appealing denials.

Recording of all income which is received.

Communicating all changes to the department of Medicaid (HFS) for Medicaid covered residents.

Changing resident personal portions due to facility in the Medicaid system.

Sending out all bills to all payers. Mostly electronically.

Medicare quarterly statements. (reconciling)

Medicaid monthly bed taxes. Calculating how much the building owes to HFS

Generating the quarterly PBJ report to the federal and the state government. Failure to do this will cost the facility money due to fines.

TCM Property physical plant manager.

Helps the facility maintenance person with building issues.

President and CFO of TCM. Oversees the Administrator and develops goals and timelines.

Matrix Care will be paid 3.65% of billing net over the next year or a minimum of approx $13,500 and the contract will be reevaluated in one year.

At the same meeting, Marcos Perez was given a permanent position as Administrator. He has been working in that position for about 5 months as a temporary Administrator. 

The full county board meeting recording is here. It starts at 1hr19min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nFrgab9VTQ

Patient census today was reported to be 49.

Essentially, Scott Helms and Tim Whalen are choosing to ignore any of the information below. They will not acknowledge any of it ever happened.

 The current strategy is death by a thousand cuts. They are continuing to pay a temporary full-time Administrator $850 per day ($110 per hour). Scott Helms has set up a committee of three to interview for a permanent Administrator position. That committee is Nicole Baker, Ronnie Bush, and a person whose job depends on Scott Helms. It's astounding how hard the members against the nursing home, work to make it fail. Especially when their complaint in the past was we don't know how to run a nursing home. 

Next, it seems Board member Tim Whalen wants TCM to train someone at Walnut Acres to do the billing, so they can fire TCM. His comment at the last NH Committee meeting was "If you can do it, anyone can do it". Later in the same meeting, he commented that if we build our census up, we have to hire more people. 

Many more things happened at the April Nursing Home Committee meeting. For instance, Helms telling former Chair Bill Hadley he wasn't qualified to sit on the Finance Committee and a whole segment on Tim Whalen wanting to change an employee's bonus package and submit the County to a potential lawsuit. 

Here's the April 2024 Nursing Home Committee meeting recording. I highly recommend everyone listen to it themselves and draw their own conclusions. Pretty crazy stuff that ultimately costs you and me money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrJYDtEpgQk