Ohio Health Care Association Elects Dayton Woman as President

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Dayton long-term care provider and businesswoman has been elected President of the state's largest long-term care association.

Linda Black-Kurek, CPA, MHA was elected 2010-2011 President of the Ohio Health Care Association (OHCA) by the organization's Board of Directors at the OHCA 2010 Annual Convention and Exhibition on May 5 in Columbus, Ohio.

Black-Kurek is President of Liberty Health Care Corporation, a nursing facility management and consulting company, where she owns and operates 15 Liberty Nursing Centers located in Ohio.

Black-Kurek has over 20 years of experience in long term health care accounting and operations. She specializes in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and financial modeling for long-term care facilities. With a focus on results, Ms. Black-Kurek has successfully assisted facilities in turnaround situations, strategic planning, and operational budgeting.

She has volunteered many years of her time as a member and Chairman of many OHCA committees, and has served six years on the Board of Directors, including two years as Treasurer and two years as Vice-President.  She has also represented the Association on various Ohio legislative and state agency groups on reimbursement-related issues.

During her inaugural speech to the members of the Association, Black-Kurek said that she planned to continue OHCA's focus on education and advocacy.

"The Ohio Health Care Association is known for the quality of its education and information to members," said Black-Kurek.  She indicated that changes in federal oversight will require additional emphasis on providing timely seminars and communication.

The state budget is also an area of major concern, she added.  "Our profession took a net reduction of 186 million in Medicaid funding in the last state budget," Black-Kurek said.  With legislators talking about a 15% across the board funding reduction to close Ohio's budget shortfall, and unknown consequences of health care reform and other changes at the federal level, providers of long-term care services will again be faced with hard decisions while providing high-quality long-term care services, she said.

Black-Kurek graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado with a Master of Science degree in Health Administration. She graduated summa cum laude from Wright State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication. She has also completed the Executive Graduate Program in Healthcare Financial Management at The Ohio State University.

She resides in Dayton with her husband James Kurek and four boys: Matthew, Brian, Benjamin and Jacob.

The Ohio Health Care Association is a non-profit association of more than 700 nursing facilities, assisted living residences and facilities for individuals with developmental disabilities, caring for nearly 74,000 Ohio residents.  It is the largest long-term care association in the state, and the only chartered Ohio affiliate of the American Health Care Association, representing facilities providing essential care to one million individuals in over 11,000 not-for-profit and proprietary member facilities.

SOURCE Ohio Health Care Association