NURSING HOMES
Long a contentious point, but highlighted by the disproportionate number of deaths among nursing home populations during COVID-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden emphasized the need for stricter mandatory threshold for staffing requirements of the nation's nursing homes during the 2022 State of the Union address. At that time, many advocacy groups and elder support groups have voiced support for Biden's focus on an issue that involves circa 15,000 facilities and about 1.2 million residents.
On September 1, 2023, Biden administration unveiled its proposals that managed to anger both sides of the aisle. Under the rules that were published on the Federal Register on September 1, 2023, the minimum staffing threshold will be 3 hours per resident per day, including just over half-an-hour of the time coming from a registered nurse. Under the rules, there will be an RN 24/7 in the facility. Industry's main lobbying group American Health Care Association's president, Mark Parkinson, a former Democratic governor of Kansas, uttered that the rules were "unfounded, unfunded and unrealistic" and "we hope to convince administration" not to finalize them.
Advocacy groups lambasted the proposals as the current average staffing level at the nursing homes is equivalent to 3.6 hours per resident per day, including over an half an hour coming from a RN. Biden's rulesets will mandate the current average thresholds without any improvement. Advocacy groups are pointing at a 2001 CMS-funded study that recommended 4.1 hours per resident per day, which, advocacy groups contended at that time, fell short of their expectation. Long Term Care Community Coalition leader Richard Mollot said that Biden's proposal will do a bare minimum ripple, not a significant reform that many advocacy groups have thought that it would herald in the most consequential piece of intervention step since the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987.
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