In September 2023, the Biden administration proposed the first-ever federal minimum staffing rule for nursing homes, requiring 3.0 nursing hours per resident per day and 24/7 registered nurse coverage at all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities. The proposal drew swift industry pushback.
Nursing Homes Are Putting Residents at Risk. We’re Ending the Abuse Today.
Despite nursing homes receiving nearly $100 billion annually from American taxpayers, too many facilities are understaffed, which can result in severe illness and even death for residents.
We’re proposing minimum staffing requirements for every taxpayer-funded nursing home. Under our new proposed standards, every nursing facility would have to provide a registered nurse on site 24/7 and have enough nurses and nurse aides to provide routine bedside care, among other tasks. Research shows that these staffing levels will save lives, provide residents with a higher quality of life and prevent needless suffering. It’s telling that nonprofit nursing homes are three times as likely as for-profit facilities to already satisfy the minimum staffing standard we’re proposing today.
Biden, Joe. “Nursing Homes Are Putting Residents at Risk. We’re Ending the Abuse Today.” USA Today, 01 September 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/09/01/biden-nursing-homes-staffing-safety-regulations/70731273007/
Despite federal data showing that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to massive job losses for nursing and residential care facilities — with the workforce 218,200 workers smaller last month than pre-pandemic — the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under the Biden Administration has proposed an unfunded staffing mandate for nursing homes.
This came after publicity over the agency’s own study finding no “clear evidence basis for setting a minimum staffing level” and acknowledging that “nursing homes are currently very challenged in hiring and retaining direct care workers, because of workforce shortages and competition from higher-paying agency positions.”
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, September 11, 2023
LeadingAge’s Sloan Defends Nonprofits After Biden Attack on Nursing Homes
Days after President Biden issued a broadside against the nursing home sector for sacrificing “the safety of its residents just to add some dollars to its bottom line,” the nation’s top advocate for nonprofit providers is pushing back with some tough words of her own.
In a guest column published Wednesday in USA Today, which also carried the Biden attack, LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan (pictured) called on the president to temper his tone so as not to destroy the trust her members have worked hard to build.
“Nonprofit and mission-driven nursing homes, including members of the association I lead, are not the grifters and blame-shifters that the public is being led to believe they are,” she added. “We share the administration’s goal of ensuring America’s older adults and families can receive high quality nursing home care.”
Sloan warned the anti-nursing home rhetoric is undermining the public’s faith in a healthcare setting already beaten and battered by the pandemic, and called on the administration to raise reimbursement rates so providers “can afford the care we exist to deliver.”
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, September 07, 2023
Biden Paints All Nursing Homes as Villains. It’s Not Accurate or Fair.
Lift us up. Support us. Work with us. We cannot bear the burden of the just-released proposed staffing mandates alone. The costs, estimated to reach into the billions, will be crushing. Help us fill our pipeline of caregiving professionals by urging Congress to reform immigration pathways. Raise reimbursement rates and inspire states to do the same, so we can afford the care we exist to deliver.
— USA Today, September 06, 2023
Biden Unloads on Nursing Home Operators
While nursing home operators scurried to read proposed new demands regarding a first-ever nursing home staffing mandate Friday, they were also left with another powerful blow to absorb: A full-on attack by President Joe Biden, who aggressively detailed the rationale for the new rule in a guest column in USA Today.
Some long-term care leaders quickly equated the president’s message with an attempt to manipulate the perception of actual conditions.
The controversial staffing proposal calls for 3.0 hours of nursing care per patient per day and also would require round-the-clock registered nurse coverage in a facility every day of the year.
The announcement ignited critical reactions from operators, some of whom found small silver linings in the long-awaited proposal, but who generally are up in arms about being mandated to employ more workers amid nationwide staffing shortages.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, September 05, 2023
