URBANA — The Champaign County Nursing Home seems destined for a major, long-awaited cash infusion, although most of the new money is already accounted for.

Members of the nursing home board gave their approval Monday night to a conditional agreement with the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services that will give the home a higher reimbursement rate for Medicaid patients, plus provide as much as $1.8 million in retroactive payments that date from Sept. 30, 2009.

But most of that money should go to a backlog of overdue bills, said Michael Scavotto, president of Management Performance Associates, the St. Louis-area firm that manages the nursing home.

"We should end up being profitable this year. But there is so much demand for money," Scavotto said. "We have capital needs, and we have to pay down all these vendors."

As of May 31, he noted, the nursing home had $2.15 million in accounts payable. Some dated back 150 days, he told the nursing home board. The facility's cash balance was $729,000.

Further, he said, the nursing home needs to set money aside for future capital projects and expenses.

"This board wants to set money aside for plant maintenance and reserves. They're right about that. We don't have any cash cushion for us to be able to respond to a contingency of any nature. It's a problem," Scavotto said.

The agreement with the state will go before the county board at its July 21 meeting.

"This is a deal that is worth taking. We're not going to get a better deal," Scavotto told the nursing home board.

In a memo to the nursing home board, Scavotto said the nursing home will be getting about $188,000 from the state to make up for payments that had been miscalculated. Further, it will get a new Medicaid reimbursement rate, retroactive to Sept. 30, 2009, that will provide as much as $1.8 million, plus higher payments in the future.

The money could start coming in by late August or early September, he said.

Meanwhile, the average daily census at the nursing home has climbed in recent weeks from 185 in April and May to as high as 195 in early July.