DANVILLE — Vermilion Manor Nursing Home Administrator Joan Darr hopes the "check" is in the mail this week as the county-owned nursing home anxiously awaits Medicaid funding from the state.

In July, Vermilion Manor and other county-owned nursing home facilities were told by the state that they would have to wait 120 days for their Medicaid reimbursement payments rather than the usual 30 days, according to Darr. So the nursing home has been feeling a cash crunch since then as the facility has had to endure the last few months without reimbursement coming in while the 120-day cycle took effect.

Next month should mark the end of the first 120-day cycle, so Darr is hoping that a reimbursement could come as soon as Thursday or at least some time in early December.

"They didn't give us a definite date, but I'm hoping it would be before the county's fiscal year ends Nov. 30. But there's no word from anyone saying it's on its way," Darr said last week.

With most of the facility's residents on Medicaid — 118 of 166 as of last week — stretching the state's Medicaid reimbursement cycle to 120 days has put financial pressure on Vermilion Manor the last few months. The nursing home is owed more than $1 million in state Medicaid reimbursements.

It's the same problem plaguing the Champaign County Nursing Home, which reported earlier this month that it was owed about $1.5 million by the state in late Medicaid payments. Champaign County Board members have decided to issue $850,000 in tax anticipation warrants to help the nursing home's finances.

Darr said the situation has affected reserves, and within the last few weeks, has affected how quickly the nursing home pays its own bills. She said up until a few weeks ago, the facility was paying bills within 30 days, but now it's going beyond 30 days.

"But we are meeting our payroll and will pay bills as we can," Darr said. The facility has its next approximately $200,000 payroll disbursement coming up soon, but Darr did not say whether it would be a problem meeting that obligation with its own money.

She said a decision to borrow money to help Vermilion Manor would be up to county board Chairman Jim McMahon, the county board and the board's nursing home committee.

Darr said she's keeping a close watch on costs, especially overtime and labor costs, by closely matching worker hours to the facility's census, which is always fluctuating.

"That's how anybody in the nursing home business controls labor costs, matching labor to census," she said.

Once the reimbursement money begins flowing again, Darr said she still must keep a tight rein on things, especially because other revenues have not been coming either.

For the last several years, the nursing home has also received a chunk of Medicaid matching dollars through intergovernmental transfers, generally flowing from the federal government through the state to the nursing home.

But that chunk of funding has been affected by changes in Washington, D.C., and Darr said Vermilion Manor hasn't received any of that Medicaid funding since 2009, and that it is owed at least $1.2 million.

Darr said those Medicaid dollars, or IGT funds as they're known, are what's made the difference for Vermilion Manor as costs increase. She said labor costs continue to rise.

"We really need it," she said of the IGT funding, "just because everything becomes more difficult and more costly."