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Boone County Nursing Facility Gets Green Light

Carespring

After nearly a decade of government and legal delays, Boonespring Transitional Care Center will break ground late this year near Union, barring any further appeals within the next month.

Officials say the economic impact is expected to be more than $30 million, including construction and the taxes the 200 people hired will pay.

Boonespring's owner, Carespring, held a news conference Tuesday to announce the timetable for construction of the $25 million dollar project and to thank politicians for working to move bed-licenses to Boone County from the former Lakeside Nursing Home in Highland Heights which had more than 200 beds.

Carespring already operates a nursing home in Campbell County and  needed to split the bed licenses between there and the new facility in Boone County because the state no longer allows one facility with hundreds of beds.

On June 10, 2015 Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd affirmed a decision to amend state law to allow more nursing home beds in Boone County.

State law was amended for good reason, according to Carespring Executive Vice President John Muller, who says Boone County is woefully under-served with nursing care facilities.

"When the bed licenses were calculated in 1974 Boone County had 35,000 people and today they have 135,000 people with no adjustment  and that's why the cabinet made the state health plan amendment to allow for movement to where the people are," Muller said. 

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.