The plight of the immigrant workforce: A moral dilemma of the current LTC environment
By
Moroni Fernandez Cajavilca
Jan 22, 2024
The long-term care industry has supported increasing the number of immigrant workers as a solution to the nationwide staffing shortages but has largely ignored the potential exploitative environment of...
Staff shortages — what’s the opportunity?
By
Susie Mix
Oct 18, 2023
Amid some good news in healthcare hiring as we recover from the pandemic, staff shortages involve a range of difficult challenges that will persist for years. Among other factors, it’s difficult to find...
Doctoral research doesn’t support the need for CMS proposed staffing mandates
By
Melissa Reed
Nov 15, 2023
Quality of care in long-term care settings has been perceived as an ongoing concern that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) aims to solve with its proposed staffing mandate. The proposed...
It’s me. I’m the problem.
By
Gary Tetz
Oct 05, 2023
Sadly, I didn’t get to the American Health Care Association convention this year. Actually, it’s been a full decade since I last personally attended one of these auspicious gatherings, Now, lest...
An unwelcome warning
By
Gary Tetz
Jul 27, 2023
While plodding a narrow, precipitous path high on the flank of Mt. Rainier this week, I saw a father and his young daughter approaching on the trail. She was an adorable child of maybe 4 or 5, all decked...
Revamping CMS survey data integration amid regulatory lag in nursing home oversight
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 08, 2023
The report titled “Uninspected and Neglected” by the majority staff of the US Senate Special Committee on Aging brings attention to a pressing issue: the severe understaffing of inspection agencies...
16 strategies for integrating CNAs into care planning and IDT meetings
By
Aasha Raval
Feb 16, 2024
Given their day-to-day, intimate interaction with residents, certified nursing assistants (CNAs) are uniquely positioned to contribute to care planning and interdisciplinary care team (IDT) meetings, where...
Falling by the wayside
By
Steven Levenson
Oct 24, 2023
This month’s column invokes several previous columns, one about medications and the other about knowing if we know what we don’t know. A recent medical journal article concluded that falls in...
Biden’s regulatory Death Star
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 11, 2023
Despite federal data showing that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to massive job losses for nursing and residential care facilities – with the workforce 218,200 workers smaller last month...
Unraveling the impact: PDPM Medicaid case-mix index and potential Five-Star Rating challenges
By
Steven Littlehale
Mar 01, 2024
The landscape of Medicaid reimbursement for nursing homes is undergoing significant changes. Presently, eight states have adopted the PDPM case-mix index (CMI) model, and an additional 31 states are set...