Skilled nursing facilities face an estimated $4 billion annual cost to comply with the proposed rule, which would require hiring up to 191,000 additional workers.
Are nursing homes headed for an 80% direct-spend rule?
The staffing mandate would impose new cost reporting requirements but stopped short of proposing a minimum spending threshold.
“We were very intentional,” about creating an 80% threshold, Becerra went on to say in a video from the event posted Thursday. In fact, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April did propose that 80% of Medicaid payments for personal care, homemaker and home health aide services be spent on compensation for direct care workers.
SIEU and other unions have brazenly boasted about their influence over nursing home policy setting in the Biden administration, and the admiration appears to be mutual. Earlier this fall, Becerra told a union rally that staffing regulations advanced to the formal proposal “because so many of you made the demand, quite honestly, the push to make sure that we establish real standards.”
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, December 11, 2023
Union ‘demand’ brought about minimum staffing rule: Becerra
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra this week took part in a national union event supporting the proposed nursing home staffing rule, giving the labor audience and their leaders credit for advancing the controversial measure.
“We are here because so many of you made the demand, quite honestly, the push to make sure that we establish real standards … that in the law … we have something that says we are going to provide quality, quality care for residents but also a quality environment for the folks who do the work.”
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, October 06, 2023
A component of the minimum staffing proposal that has received little notice thus far is that labor unions may have some weight in determining the staffing levels needed for a particular building.
“I’ve never seen this kind of thing in a proposed rule,” said Cynthia Morton, executive vice president of ADVION, noting there is “really interesting language” in the proposal describing the role unions can play in facility assessments and staffing level determinations.
— Skilled Nursing News, October 03, 2023
New union voice joins fight for nursing home staffing minimums
Leaders of two major unions brought out the top brass and dug deep into their ranks so that nursing home staff, family members and a current resident could share the ways understaffing has affected them during a live, virtual event Thursday.
The SEIU and the AFL-CIO billed the Facebook event as a rally in support of a federal nursing home staffing mandate, but speakers were also more than willing to lob broad accusations of corporate profit-taking in the healthcare system.
“Nursing homes will have to hire more nurses and nursing assistants, and they will have to pay more. This standard will lay the foundation for improving care and care jobs,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond at a virtual SEIU-sponsored rally calling for adoption of the federal mandate.
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, July 14, 2023
Unions Fired Up Ahead of Minimum Staffing Proposal, as Trade Groups Urge Biden to ‘Reconsider’
The AFL-CIO called on nursing home workers to share their stories and testimonials with HHS, saying corporations are “doing everything they can” to lobby against the staffing standard — while AHCA/NCAL simultaneously sent a letter to President Biden urging him to reconsider the unfunded mandate.
— Skilled Nursing News, July 13, 2023
Drowning in worry? Unions offer new staffing rule entanglement
State-level staffing ratios have been embraced by unions, with many reporting victories at the bargaining table since local laws were passed. With every worker lost now threatening a nursing home’s ability to comply with required levels, it makes sense to think that union-backed staff would feel empowered to demand higher pay and better benefits.
A source at the AFL-CIO told McKnight’s that the national organization plans a publicity push following the staffing rule’s announcement — an organization that “sees an opportunity to drown the sector in negativity while making a big splash of its own.”
— McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, July 05, 2023
Why CMS Staffing Mandate Could Jumpstart Union Efforts in Nursing Homes
Nursing home and labor leaders believe more labor organizing will happen in conjunction with the forthcoming federal staffing minimum mandate, as the sector has historically seen a low proportion of workers covered by union contracts.
Research from George Washington University labor expert Adam Dean found that facilities with unionized workers saw 10.8% lower Covid death rates among residents — a data point union advocates are using to build the case for both the mandate and expanded labor organizing in the sector.
— Skilled Nursing News, July 05, 2023
