The Biden administration finalized on Monday the first-ever minimum staffing rule at nursing homes, Vice President Kamala Harris announced.
The controversial mandate requires that all nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding provide a total of at least 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident per day, including defined periods from registered nurses and from nurse aides. That means a facility with 100 residents would need at least two or three registered nurses and at least 10 or 11 nurse aides, as well as two additional nurse staff, who could be registered nurses, licensed professional nurses or nurse aides, per shift, according to a White House fact sheet.
Plus, nursing homes must have a registered nurse onsite at all times. The mandate will be phased in, with rural communities having longer timeframes, and temporary exemptions will be available for facilities in areas with workforce shortages that demonstrate a good faith effort to hire.
The rule, which was first proposed in September and initially called for at least three hours of daily nursing care per resident, is aimed at addressing nursing homes that are chronically understaffed, which can lead to sub-standard or unsafe care, the White House said.
Labor shortages are always, always, caused by compensation problems or management problems. Every single time. No exceptions.
There are plenty of ex nurses that left the profession during covid. It became abundantly clear how little they were respected. Try respecting them again and maybe you won’t have shortages.
You know the best way to show respect? Proper compensation and competent management.
A nursing program is 16 months. Even if they miraculously started paying more today, the next crop of students isn’t going to see it for almost a year and a half.
That’s the other part of it. You have to attract people to a 16 month commitment before they ever see a salary and there aren’t enough people currently in that pipe at any pay level.
And? Are you claiming if something can’t be fixed tomorrow it’s not worth working on?
No, I’m saying the problem is larger than “well, pay them more.”
No I don’t think it is. It’s just not an instant fix. But nothing in life ever is so that’s a silly way to go about thinking of the world. Besides, there’s nothing to say it would even take years to correct. There’s plenty of nurses that got out of the game due to lack of pay and lack of proper management. Not only would new people get into the profession, but many would come back.
Certainly I think it’s a better solution than continually to underpay them and hoping it’ll work itself out. A pizza party ain’t going to save this shit. There’s no magical scenario to fix underemployment in an industry that doesn’t involve proper compensation.