Payroll-based journal data is central to these debates, with advocacy groups using PBJ reports to scrutinize administrator on-site hours while providers dispute the accuracy of the underlying figures.
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.
By coming up with a plan and giving it a test-run — hopefully in a state that can give a meaningful look at numerous dimensions of any proposal — both regulator and provider camps could learn a lot. Like what to stay away from, as well as what not to fear.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, October 26, 2022
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 argument to be made that such a move by CMS would be its own ruination. Let me explain.
From the provider perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic’s “Great Resignation” workforce realignment has already made staffing extraordinarily challenging. As of preliminary figures last month, Bureau of Labor Statistics data found over 311,000 fewer workers in “nursing and residential care facilities” than in March 2020, when the pandemic began to fully unleash its cruelty upon long-term care.
It is not for lack of trying on providers’ part. An accounting firm’s survey found the average wage costs for New Hampshire nursing homes rose 19.53% from 2019-21, excluding contract labor, or 23.66% including contract labor.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, December 23, 2022
Nursing home administrators spent 20 percent less time on-site in recent years, group claims
Accusations that nursing home administrators are spending 20% less time with residents and on-site miss the mark, said two people who closely observe top facility staff.
The claims come from the Long-Term Care Community Coalition, which used federal payroll-based journal data to extrapolate that the average amount of time administrators spent at SNFs dropped from 8.44 hours per day in the third quarter of 2019 to 6.17 hours per day in the same quarter in 2022.
In addition, at least half of all US nursing homes lost at least one administrator over the previous 12 months and at least 2,100 facilities lost at least two administrators, the group said.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, March 13, 2023
Consumer group counterpunches as nursing homes worry about staffing mandate
While nursing home advocates continue to plead with federal officials about what they call the lack of feasibility for an expected first-ever federal staffing mandate, a notable consumer group has released a report accusing government overseers of not adequately tracking billions of dollars given to providers.
“Where Do the Billions of Dollars Go? A Look At Nursing Home Related Party Transactions” claims to document how nursing homes “funnel billions of dollars through related party companies — companies they own — with little to no oversight by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.”
The publication was produced by the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term-Care, a watchdog group long known to wary providers. The report appears to have been released with the White House’s looming nursing home staffing mandate in mind.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, April 03, 2023
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 CMS or the White House, or a well-intended healthcare research expert, how does that make you feel? I know I feel a strong sense of frustration and disappointment.
Setting a minimum staffing requirement in no way assures there will be enough staff to address the needs of older adults needing skilled nursing care. It is “political theater” at best, and at its worst, it further endangers the ability of providers to best meet the needs of present and future residents.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, April 14, 2023
