Defiant Sloan to nursing home critics: Address funding to tackle staffing challenge
By
Joe Bush
Dec 07, 2022
The leader of one the nation’s largest skilled nursing organizations Tuesday pushed back against a recent popular narrative about understaffing, reiterating concerns about Medicaid pay that continues...
Healthcare worker vaccination mandate could end after a military vax withdrawal
By
Joe Bush
Dec 06, 2022
Two national vaccine mandates, including the one affecting most nursing home workers, are under attack and could face reversal.
State’s nursing homes in line for $610 million bonanza based on care, costs
By
Joe Bush
Dec 05, 2022
Ohio nursing homes would get a $615 million infusion if the state Senate follows the House’s lead and votes to approve the measure. The House approved the funding by a 63-12 vote Thursday, shortly after...
Provider advocates slam ‘unfair’ media take down of nursing home staffing compliance
By
Joe Bush
Dec 02, 2022
A major provider organization Thursday called out a newspaper’s national investigation into nursing home staffing as “unfair and mischaracterized.”
Opponents of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers are pursuing two fresh pathways to defeat it. Both challenges cite the pandemic’s current, less critical stage...
White House announces big nursing home COVID-19 vaccination push and providers push back
By
Joe Bush
Nov 23, 2022
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a six-week $475 million campaign to raise the COVID-19 vaccination rate among nursing home residents, and the sector’s leaders responded immediately with...
Prioritize ventilation over masking, ‘realistic’ epidemiologist advises long-term care providers
By
Kimberly Marselas
Nov 23, 2022
Staying away from groups when sick and improved ventilation — but not masking — are the way forward at this point in the pandemic, a noted epidemiologist and COVID-19 advisor told a nursing home group...
Providers warned: Ongoing relief fund audits may bring unprecedented info demands
By
Joe Bush
Nov 21, 2022
Provider Relief Fund audits have started in earnest, with the threat of federal investigators demanding more and different data than most skilled nursing providers have ever been asked to account for.
States push CMS to repeal COVID-19 vaccine mandate
By
Kimberly Marselas
Lois A. Bowers
Nov 18, 2022
A coalition of 22 states is taking a new angle in its attempts to overturn a national mandate requiring that healthcare workers be vaccinated against COVID-19: They’re simply asking federal regulators...
CMS, OIG agree on increasing scrutiny of psychotropic drug use
By
Joe Bush
Nov 18, 2022
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will be increasing its oversight of the use of psychotropic drugs to pay closer attention to certain classes, warned the lead author of a federal report identifying...