AHCA’s CEO: Nursing Homes Must Prepare for ‘Massive’ Staffing Mandate Battle, Adapt to Managed Care ‘Mega-Trend’

Nursing homes are past the “nightmare” caused by Covid-19, but now are facing “a real business problem” that could be considerably worsened by the coming federal staffing mandate.

That’s according to Mark Parkinson, CEO and president of the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL). He spoke Tuesday of the urgent need to battle the staffing mandate even now, before the proposal drops.

Parkinson said labor shortages are still plaguing the nursing home industry even as other subsectors in health care have recovered, and any regulation that fails to account for this crisis will be disastrous as the industry remains short of more than 200,000 workers.

“We’re just not seeing [the worker shortage] recovered,” he said. “It is ridiculous to enforce a staffing mandate … when you’ve got this kind of data.”

The finalized rule will likely not be solidified until sometime in 2024, he predicted, and until then the battle to modify and “make this rule better” and even challenge it from being implemented is underway.