Staffing shortages continue to dominate the industry rendering it difficult for post-acute care providers to maintain consistent levels of staff and quality care. To ease the staffing burden, providers are requesting assistance from staffing agencies. While this is an efficient solution, providers should try and avoid some common pitfalls when it comes to signing staffing agreements. Reviewing the indemnification and …
Staffing shortages continue to dominate the industry rendering it difficult for long-term care providers to maintain consistent levels of staff and quality care. Most providers are watching their staff quit the industry entirely or switch over to temporary staffing agencies to make more money. To ease the staffing burden, providers are requesting assistance from staffing agencies. While this is an …
On March 11, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which included $250 million allocated Medicare and Medicaid funding for the implementation of nursing home strike teams. AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services on June 11, 2021, urging …
In the year of the pandemic, many of us struggled with staffing and continue to be challenged, however, it is important that we not skip important steps in the hiring process such as checking the OIG exclusion list. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has the authority to exclude individuals and entities from Federally funded health care programs for …
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the danger in approaching nursing home care as simply long-term housing for the elderly. Research has shown that strong staffing coverage is a key indicator of a facility’s ability to keep COVID-19 outbreaks in check, and geriatricians have called for a larger role in shaping nursing home policy and operations. In the second part of Skilled …
The OIG performed an audit review focusing on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS’s) use of data on nursing home staffing from April 2018 through March 2019; before the COVID-19 pandemic. They also noted recent CMS actions through December 2020. Since November 2016, CMS has required nursing homes to submit payroll-based staffing data, including data on nurses and …
In May and June of 2020, front-line nursing home staff described working under complex, challenging, and evolving conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was conducted more than 3 months after a nursing home in Washington became the initial U.S. epicenter of COVID-19 and at a time when there were already more than 50,000 cases and 10,000 deaths among nursing …
JAMDA published a recent study that assessed whether using coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) community activity levels can accurately inform strategies for routine testing of facility staff for active severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Of the staff tested, 28% were certified nursing assistants (CNAs) who accounted for 36.9% of all staff testing positive. Similarly, licensed practice nurses (LPNs) …
A team of researchers from UCLA and Yale University decided to examine the people who continued to enter nursing homes during the beginning of the coronavirus in March 2020, the employees! Keith Chen, a behavioral economist and UCLA professor said the key question is this: “The people who, we can infer, work in this nursing home, what other nursing homes …
During this pandemic and beyond, we see that the stress put on our caregivers and staff has increased dramatically. We have added new policies, revised existing policies, and required staff to take on additional documentation and tasks throughout their shift. All of these changes can and have proven to increase their level of stress. As a leader, are you aware …
