CMS Official: We’re ‘Very Seriously’ Weighing Nursing Home Operators’ Staffing Concerns, Creative Solutions Needed

Apr 23, 2023 | Minimum Staffing

CMS Official: We’re ‘Very Seriously’ Weighing Nursing Home Operators’ Staffing Concerns, Creative Solutions Needed

Dr. Shari Ling, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Thursday confirmed that the agency will release a proposed minimum staffing standard for nursing homes this spring, and said that CMS is taking the comments and the data on staffing very seriously.

“CMS is working on and has fielded a staffing study and also put out a request for other sources of information to help us shape what staffing requirements look like,” Ling told Skilled Nursing News at the publication’s CLINICAL conference in Washington, D.C. “We all will look forward to when we’re able to publicly release and speak to some of the details.”

Ling urged nursing home providers to communicate with CMS about innovations or ideas for creative approaches that could help address the staffing crunch, and flagged that an entire day of the upcoming CMS Quality Conference will be focused on nursing home care.

FROM

Skilled Nursing News

PUBLISHED

April 23, 2023

SOURCE

Grebbin, Shelby. “CMS Official: We’re ‘Very Seriously’ Weighing Nursing Home Operators’ Staffing Concerns, Creative Solutions Needed.” Skilled Nursing News, 24 Apr. 2023, skillednursingnews.com/2023/04/cms-official-were-very-seriously-weighing-nursing-home-operators-staffing-concerns-creative-solutions-needed.

More News in this PBJ Topic

Minimum staffing requirement: Thank you?

Minimum staffing requirement: Thank you?“The only way to assure there is enough staff in a skilled nursing facility is to implement a minimum staffing requirement.” When you hear or read statements like this from a member of Congress, a staffer at...

read more

OIG signals new focus on nursing homes

OIG signals new focus on nursing homesThe federal Office of Inspector General recently published  its “OIG’s Top Unimplemented Recommendations: Solutions To Reduce Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in HHS Programs.” In the Top Recommendations, OIG stated...

read more

CMS should be careful in what it asks for

CMS should be careful in what it asks for Those in the nursing home sector are worried a potential staffing mandate imposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could be the ruination of a reeling sector. However, there is an...

read more

Provider advocates slam ‘unfair’ media take down of nursing home staffing compliance

A major provider organization Thursday called out a newspaper’s national investigation into nursing home staffing as “unfair and mischaracterized.”

USA Today’s lengthy article focused on staffing benchmarks set by federal agencies, understaffing of facilities and the harm it causes residents and staff, and the low percentage of citations compared to the number of understaffed facilities the paper found in its investigation.

“We are extremely disappointed in USA Today’s unfair and mischaracterized reporting,” AHCA leaders said. “The analysis that USA Today bases their claims on is flawed.”

read more

The minimum staffing cloud looms. Will any sunlight shine through?

As the leaves start to fall in many parts of the US, so has something else: Hope that a rule establishing minimum staffing levels in nursing homes won’t happen in spring.

It’s become abundantly clear over the past few months that the administration will not be deterred from its mission. It will soon tell nursing facilities how many people they have to have to run their businesses. Long-term care’s biggest figureheads have acknowledged as much and have started planning for the next steps.

read more

3 Nursing Home Legal Issues to Watch in 2022 and Beyond

As a flurry of regulations and mandates descend upon the nursing home sector, such changes could create legal obstacles, and suggest yet another difficult and onerous year for providers.

Staffing mandates, the aftermath of the end of the public health emergency (PHE), Covid liability and the PREP Act, all create “existential threats” for skilled nursing operators, at a time when so many are still attempting to recover from the last two and a half years.

read more