Nursing Homes Seek Latitude on Staff Mandate, Funds to Meet It
Nursing homes are seeking lots of flexibility, forgiveness, and funding when the Biden administration implements its mandatory minimum staffing requirements for the facilities next year.
Rather than hard and fast quotas, they want flexible staffing requirements that vary based on factors like the availability of local labor, the health status of facility residents, a building’s physical layout, and the quality of care provided.
They also want forgiveness in the form of exemptions and waivers for nursing homes that can’t meet the new staffing mandates through no fault of their own.
And most of all, they want more Medicare and Medicaid funding to pay for any required workforce expansion that would result from an industry-wide staffing requirement.
“It’s hard to put a specific number on anything quite yet. But what we are advocating for is that any new requirements must be fully funded,” said Holly Harmon, senior vice president of quality, regulatory and clinical services at the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, the industry’s leading trade group.
Read the full story from Bloomberg Law here.
