For the first ever in the history of the US, the federal government will regulate levels of staffing in the nursing homes. This came in as a response to the occurrences during the COVID-19 pandemic and the healthcare check at that point.
It has been granted after several decades of requests from the senior citizens and people of disabilities. Yet, the proposal remains far less than what the advocates were shouting for. Even the nursing homes could not help but question the amount available to their deposits.
Biden’s statement vs the US care health association
President Joe Biden’s 2022 speech at the Station of the Union made this promise persistent in front of all his citizens. Though, with the year passing by, the criticism soon paved its way in despite the repetitive reiteration of the promises.
“We are working to make sure no nursing home can sacrifice the safety of their residents just to add some dollars to their bottom line,”
Joe Biden
The opinion of the American Health Care Association soon came in, calling the proposal an impossible practicality. They referred to it worsening the situation, financially and medically. The president of AHCA, Mark Parkinson, revealed that their aim remains to convince the administration not to comply with the rule as it seems utterly unrealistic.
The outline of the new set of rulings in the US
The introduced rules, though, will take the next few years to be implemented in full contention. The requirement also was to call in enough staff to cover the criteria of 3 hours a day per resident, hence looking at new recruitments. The normal setting of the US Nursing Homes already caters to caregiving staff of approximately 3.6 hours a day.
This also includes the RN staffing who reach the mark just half an hour above it. Yet, the ruling party shares a reference point that about almost 15000 nursing homes, which includes 1.2 million people, would be allowed to add the needed staff under the proposal. The medicaid services called it a revolutionising step in the neglected field.
An anonymous representative of the Biden government revealed how the aim remained to put forth regular checks on the proposal as well other recommendations that will accompany the implementation.
The difference between expectation and implementation
The expectations set by the advocates after a landmark 2001 CMS funded study recommended an average of 4.1 hours of nursing care for a resident on a daily basis. However, the new thresholds appear to be drastically lower than those anticipated. Most US facilities do not even meet these thresholds. As a matter of fact, this has led many advocates to call these facilities not sufficient to improve the quality of life.
Thus, intake determines at which point which resident might suffer lesser impact of the negligence. However, this was not the case always. In fact, initially, the advocates seem to be quite joyful regarding the announcement made by the democratic President in his state of Union speech as most of them expected significant changes to be made in the system for the residents. This was according to the nursing home reform act of 1987. Unfortunately, the joy soon turned into disappointment when a CMS funded study on the same topic unintentionally was posted this week. According to this report, there is no obvious plateau at which quality and safety are maximised, were claimed.
This led to betrayal to shadow the advocates as they had trusted the administration officials and thought of them as allies. Some of the advocates had a more agitated response to the inadvertently made public announcement than others.
Long Term US Care Community Coalition leader’s remarks
Regarding all this, some of the entities who have come forward to provide their strong opinion include Richard Mollot. He is the leader of the long-term care community coalition. According to Mollot, the once in a generation opportunity. Now it seems completely inadequate. It not only fails the needs of residents but also does not make good on the heart of Biden’s promise.
Despite his strong criticism of the system, he acknowledged the 24/7 RN rule to bring some of the smaller improvements to the worst of the facilities. Apart from this, he even called the moon to be heartbreaking and nauseating. He believed that it would bring more harm than good. Putting the government at a very poor front in front of the citizens.
Facing the media, the leader said that it is a “tremendous dereliction of duty”. He further continued that we are continuing to allow nursing homes to warehouse people and to rip the public off.
“To say that we are disappointed that President Biden chose to move forward with the proposed staffing ratios despite clear evidence against them is an understatement,”
Medical Leader
