The lead lobbying group for nursing properties desires a sit-down with President Joe Biden and his high well being officers to speak in regards to the White Home’s plans to extra tightly regulate expert nursing services.
Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Well being Care Affiliation and the Nationwide Heart for Assisted Residing, desires to satisfy with Biden, Well being and Human Providers Secretary Xavier Becerra and Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, he wrote in a letter to Becerra Tuesday.
“It’s essential that you simply hear immediately from devoted nursing dwelling operators and professionals in regards to the high quality efforts which can be already going down, the successes that SNFs have achieved and our daring plans for the long run,” Parkinson wrote. “It is usually essential that suppliers share the vital challenges they face in recruiting and retaining healthcare employees and different vital personnel.”
Throughout this State of the Union handle final week, Biden highlighted security and high quality shortcomings at nursing properties, together with the extreme toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on their residents and staff. Greater than 200,000 sufferers and employees in long-term care services died from the virus, amounting to roughly 1 / 4 of pandemic-related fatalities nationwide, based on CMS information compiled by the Kaiser Household Basis.
The pandemic introduced unprecedented security and high quality challenges to healthcare suppliers, however years of analysis exhibits nursing properties had issues earlier than the general public well being emergency was introduced. For instance, regulators uncovered at the least one an infection prevention and management error at 82% of the nursing properties inspected between 2013 and 2017, the Authorities Accountability Workplace reported in 2020.
With reference to staffing, Parkinson wrote that nursing properties need to rent extra staff however face main recruitment challenges, beginning with a employee scarcity.
“Growing staffing minimums within the midst of this workforce disaster—with out corresponding sources—does little to assist residents and would lead to almost each nursing dwelling being out of compliance. Amenities, particularly in rural communities, could be pressured to additional restrict entry to take care of residents with a view to meet arbitrary staffing ratios or shut altogether,” Parkinson wrote.