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. 

The American Health Care Association told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News in an email that USA Today’s use of the 4.1 HPRD recommendation from 2001 and CMS STRIVE calculations to analyze today’s nursing home staffing levels is unfair since nursing homes are not required to meet these standards. 

“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. The vast majority of nursing homes are committed to providing surveyors with accurate, complete information, and the current payroll-based journal reporting system is auditable and robust; 99% of nursing homes are currently meeting the federal government’s process to determine sufficient staffing.”