Category Archives: Did You Know?

Did you know this about the Mountrail County Health Center? 

Over the past couple of years, members at the Mountrail County Health Center have been answering questions, comments or concerns they have heard on the street from patients, community members or employees. Over the next year, we will be revisiting these old Did You Know’s, taking the ones that need updating, and letting you know how we have changed it, hopefully for the better.  If you have a specific non-health related question you want an answer to, please email that question to severett@stanleyhealth.org

 Why have the beds at MBH been decreasing over the years?

For years, the Mountrail Bethel Home was a 57 bed skilled nursing home facility, with a waiting list.  Now, we are a 36 bed skilled nursing home facility with 12 beds on “layaway” (meaning they are not being used).  This is due to the “great depression lull.”  Within ten years, by 2029,  recent studies done by Strengthen ND show that our 65+ age group is projected to increase 45.4%, much due to the Baby Boomers aging. With that happening, we won’t be able to find an open bed in North Dakota.

We know here at the Mountrail Bethel Home that the landscape has changed.  More elderly are staying home longer or moving into Assisted Livings, rather than nursing homes. Over the next couple of years, a committee comprised of board members and MBH employees will be strategically planning what the future MBH will look like.  Should we build a 48 bed Nursing Home with an Alzheimer’s Wing?  Should we build a 36 bed nursing home and build more Assisted Living apartments?  Should we bring basic care into our nursing home care plan?

In order to move forward like we want to, we need to have immediate help from the community.  We need to fill our beds to 36 residents again.  Our care at MBH is top notch.  We love and deeply care for our residents and it shows.  The Mountrail Bethel Home has achieved the highest ranking for safety and quality from CMS a Nursing Home can reach – a 5 – Star rating.

We are up against a variety of obstacles, one being:   “Why is it so expensive to have our loved one in the Nursing home?”   Usually a loved one is in the nursing home because the family cannot take care of them at home anymore.  They are here at the Mountrail Bethel Home so that our qualified staff can take care of them with any needs that arise 24/7. With that being said, each resident care level is different.  There are 48 levels a resident may be in.  Each of those levels is set according to specific criteria.  The MDS Coordinator has a forty page complete assessment which is done every three months on each resident.  This assessment determines which level a resident falls into.  The assessment looks at the resident’s memory and cognitive state, any diagnoses they have that are being treated, how much assistance they require with their cares (dressing, eating, transferring, bathing, mobility, walking, toileting, and personal cares), if they need wound care, oxygen, IV, special cares, dietary needs, have incontinence, order changes, doctor visits, and a comprehensive review of their chart.

Rates in the nursing home are determined by the state of North Dakota every year in December based upon cost reports filed by each facility.  The reason the government has such a comprehensive influence on the rates is due to the fact that skilled nursing facilities are state and federally funded.  The state of ND has rate equalization.  We want it that way.  Rate equalization means that MBH charges the same rate for Medicaid patients versus Self Pay.  States like South Dakota do not have rate equalization.  Who picks up the tab on the low paying Medicaid rate are the self-pay nursing home residents.  That is why the state is seeing such a high rate of nursing homes closing.  The linked article shared by the North Dakota Long Term Care Association is heartbreaking at best.  (Nursing Homes Are Closing Across Rural America, Scattering Residents)

We here in Stanley don’t want to scatter our residents across ND and take them away from the community they grew up in and helped mold.  We are committed to this community, which is the reason we are building a 14 unit Assisted Living, Rosen Place on 8^th, to allow our residents to not have to move to Minot and beyond when they see they need more care than their home can offer. That is also the reason we want to methodically plan the future footprint of the Mountrail Bethel Home.

Please contact Kelly Gustavson with any of your needs and questions by calling 628-2442, ext. 8618.  If you want further information in regards to where your loved one fits on the Long Term Care Decision tree, please go to https://carechoice.nd.assistguide.net/.  We sincerely thank you for your continued support of Mountrail County Medical Center and Mountrail Bethel Home!

Many Avenues…One Goal…Your Health!

To make an appointment at T.H. Reiarson Rural Health Clinic please call 701-628-2505. Our appointment times are Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, unless otherwise posted. Our current providers include: Dr. Mark Longmuir, MD; Tara Nardacci, DNP; Tammie Braaflat, NP, and Abbey Ruland, PA. Most of these providers also cover our Emergency Room and Mountrail Bethel Home. As a result, occasionally, depending whoever is on call, you might not be able to see your scheduled provider on time or at all on a particular day. However, there should almost always be another provider who will take care of your needs. Please note that if you request to see a specific provider for a clinic visit, it may be difficult to get in the same day or even the next day for an appointment. Again, rest assured that we should have appointments available with one of our other providers on the same day. They all work closely together to give you the best possible care, regardless of who you see. Also, if you have a medical question or concern, or feel you may need to be seen sooner than the available appointment time that was given to you, please ask to speak with your provider’s nurse or any nurse. Remember in an Emergency to call 911 or come directly to our Emergency Department.

It is imperative to know your coverage and benefits before you go to a doctor’s visit. Knowing these details of your policy is an important part of being proactive in your healthcare and understanding your medical bills.

A persons co-pay, coinsurance & deductibles are not determined by any healthcare facility you visit. Healthcare facilities also do not determine what is covered under your policy or at what rate your insurance company will pay for doctor visit. These are all determined by your insurance. Understanding how your co-pay, coinsurance and deductible work will help you know when and how much you have to pay for care.

– Deductible: A deductible is the amount you pay for health care services before your health insurance begins to pay.

– Coinsurance: Coinsurance is your share of the costs of a health care service. It’s usually figured as a percentage of the amount your insurance allows to be charged for services. You start paying coinsurance after you’ve paid your plan’s deductible.

– Copay: A copayment or co-pay is a fixed payment for a covered service, paid when an individual receives service. It must be paid before any policy benefit is payable by an insurance company.

A patient may have all three listed above within one visit depending on what you are seeing the doctor for. More than likely a co-insurance will apply for a visit after the insurance has processed the visit, even if co-pay was taken at the time of visit. The deductible will come into play if items such as X-Rays or blood work are taken.

It’s just as crucial to understand your preventive care coverage on your policy. These services are limited to once a year or even once every two years. Having these services more frequently than your policy allows can mean large out of pocket expenses for you as a patient and not having them frequently enough, can mean you are missing great opportunities for preventative care. Such wellness services that could be covered at 100%, with the deductible waived, are well child care visits, preventive screening services, immunizations, mammograms or prostate cancer screening services. To get an understanding of your insurance policy you will need to call the member services number on your insurance card.

We thank you for your continued support. Nobody takes care of you like your own.

The Mountrail County Medical Center has a full lab and radiology department that is here for your lab and X-ray needs.

All labs, including urine and blood, can be completed here in Stanley, even if your provider is not local. All lab orders can be drawn at the Mountrail County Medical Center, processed and then sent out to the requesting provider.

The same is true for any X-ray needs you may have. MCMC recently has been able to upgrade their radiology equipment due to gracious grants from the Hess Corporation and a private donor. CT scans are also available in-house.

Hours for lab and radiology services are Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. It’s nice to know you are coming ahead of time, but walk-ins are welcome. You just need to have your doctor’s order in hand or have had it faxed over earlier to 628-3274. Please check in at the front desk of the T.H. Reiarson Rural Health Clinic for any lab or radiology needs or call 628-2505 to alert staff you are coming.

MRIs are available every Monday through DMS Health. Ultrasounds/Echoes are also available every Monday and Thursday through DMS Health. These are by appointment only. Please call 628-2424, extension 135 or ask for Radiology.

EKGs can be done by your provider here, if needed. Mammograms are done once a month here in Stanley through Trinity. For more information or to schedule an appointment please call the Trinity Breast Imaging department at 701-857-2640.

We thank you for your continued support. Nobody takes care of you like your own.

Nursing facilities are for residents whose needs are complex and need nursing care and supervision.

The Mountrail Bethel Home is dedicated to providing quality care to its residents. It prides itself on being a wonderful place to call home with 24 hour care and high staff to resident ratio. It is a 52 bed skilled nursing facility. It features semi-private rooms with shared bath, private rooms with a shared bath and private rooms with a private bath. Further safety measures, such as the use of Secure Care, provide essential protection to each resident in the Mountrail Bethel Home.

There are several steps that need to be taken to ensure your loved one is in need of nursing home care. Step One would be to contact Kelly Gustavson at 628-2442, ext. 118. Step Two will be for her to confirm payer source. There are mainly three sources we accept in our home. They are Long Term Care insurance, Medicaid or Private Pay. Long Term Care insurance and Medicaid patients need to meet a certain level of care in order to be placed in the Nursing Home. Self pay does not need to meet any sort of level of care. Medicare does cover, but for a limited number of days. Step Three is the collecting of medical records of the resident wanting into the Nursing Home. Step Four is the review of Steps Two and Three by an Admission Team that makes the final decision on if a resident can come into the Mountrail Bethel Home. There runs a risk of denial if we feel we cannot safely care for your family member, if a Medicaid patient does not meet the level of care that Medicaid will pay for or if there are no funds available to pay for services provided monthly for a resident.

The Mountrail Bethel Home currently has openings available at the facility. Please contact Kelly with any of your needs. Or if you want further information in regards to where your loved one fits on the Long Term Care Decision tree please go to https://carechoice.nd.assistguide.net/

A visit with your provider in the clinic could produce three different statements, depending on what you had done during your visit. The doctor’s visit will be billed through our clinic (Mountrail County Medical Clinic) electronic health records, Athena Health. But if you have any testing, lab or radiology completed during this visit, this will be billed through the hospital (Mountrail County Medical Center) electronic health records, Patient Co.

The Mountrail County Medical Center has a full in-house lab and radiology department that is here for your lab and X-ray needs. This includes CT, X-Rays, blood work, urine and EKGs. Pap smears, biopsies and certain specialty testing completed during your visit at the clinic are sent out to Trinity or even Mayo, if needed.

All X-Rays taken at MCMC are sent to Trinity’s radiology department to be read by a radiologist. All blood smears taken at MCMC are sent to Trinity’s pathology department to be read by a pathologist. All EKGs/ECGs taken at MCMC are sent to Trinity’s cardiology department to be read by a cardiologist. This partnership with Trinity leads to a billing statement for these services from Trinity anytime any of the above occurs.

If you should have any questions on any of this please contact MCMC. We thank you for your continued support. Nobody takes care of you like your own.

This week we are going to fill your mind with a few rarely talked about tidbits about our facility.

So, Did You Know That…

• The Mountrail County Health Center has 101 active computer workstations.
• There are over 200 “mice” in the building.
• We back up over a terabyte of information every 15 minutes.

We have 66 toilets in the facility that are cleaned daily.

So we are sure than you are wondering, ‘Wow, how much toilet paper do they go through then?’Well, we go through 4,160 rolls of toilet paper a year, 80 rolls per week. J

• The total of aspirin given each year to residents is 14,400 capsules.
• We make and serve 53,274 meals per year in the Bethel Home.
• We pour 199,655 scheduled beverages per year in the Bethel Home.This does not include the beverages served to the residents at snack time.This count is just for the daily meals.
• We go through 153,000 gallons of water per month by ONLY the Bethel Home.
• Our laundry ladies do 142,000 pounds of laundry per year for MBH and MCMC.

A CNA typically walks 15,000 steps, totaling 6-7 miles, while caring for the Bethel Home residents during an 8 hour shift.

The first resident at the Bethel Home was Victor Laukala, admitted in December of 1960.Since then, the Bethel Home has been called home to 1,042 residents.

Four hundred and forty seven donations have been made to the Mountrail County Health Foundation since the Capital Campaign started in the fall of 2013.A total of $3,592,042.65 has been donated.

The residents at the Bethel Home are SUPER competitive when it comes to Giant Yahtzee and Card Sharks.

Three thousand one hundred and fifty feet of hospital tubing is utilized per year.

• The average course of outpatient physical therapy is between 7-10 visits.

Even in the era of Electronic Health Records, the Medical Records department still goes through 3 reams of paper, totaling 1,500 pieces of paper per week. On average one patient visit accumulates 20 pages of paper due to printing to a fax or printing to mail out, plus the paper they get from the other departments to scan.

You can find this “Did You Know” and all past ones on our website at www.stanleyhealth.org.  We thank you for your continued support. We are always striving to do better.

Nobody takes care of you like your own.