A top advocacy organization for skilled nursing facilities and other assisted living entities has taken issue with statements from the Biden administration characterizing a decline in nursing home quality and is now requesting a sit-down with the president and other federal health leaders to address rhetoric and policy proposals recently outlined by the administration.
Feb. 28, the White House released a breakdown of new nursing home quality and safety reforms spearheaded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Among the improvement initiatives listed by the administration were the introduction of minimum nursing home staffing requirements, stronger quality performance incentives, more funding for facility inspections, improved transparency into facilities’ safety and finances, nurse training support and pandemic preparedness, among other efforts.
Of note, the White House introduced its reform plan by highlighting the over 200,000 long-term care residents and staff that have died from COVID-19 over the past two years.
“Despite the tens of billions of federal taxpayer dollars flowing to nursing homes each year, too many continue to provide poor, sub-standard care that leads to avoidable resident harm,” the administration wrote in its Feb. 28 fact sheet. “In fact, failure to comply with Federal guidelines at nursing homes is widespread. The Government Accountability Office found (PDF) that, from 2013 to 2017, 82% of all inspected nursing homes had an infection...
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