Do you ever feel the public is completely blind to your nursing home’s struggles?
For those of you dealing with frustrated family members trying to find a place for their loved one, I imagine their “surprise” on learning about a lack of nursing home beds is a regular reminder that your warnings about levels of access often fall on deaf ears.
Now, a new ranking of states based on “access to high-quality nursing homes” threatens to further drown out your concerns.
In part, the ranking used the percentage of nursing homes with more than 50 certified beds to demonstrate access — without the context needed to determine whether those beds are actually available or being held empty because of staffing shortages.
Atop the list is California, home to more than 1,200 nursing homes. In the last year, the state has seen quality providers including Kaiser Permanente and the Little Sisters of the Poor pull out of the sector. That’s despite a new state funding formula launched in 2023 that was intended to help promote higher staffing and increase reimbursement for quality outcomes.
Pennsylvania lands at No. 3 on the list from Caredemy, a training and education firm that based its list on Care Compare data for bed counts, staffing quality and health inspection scores.
Pennsylvania came in so high, according to a press release from Caredemy, due to its “exceptional staffing quality and high availability of nursing home beds.” Yes, staffing levels are high at face value, with new state requirements for the number of aides and nurses hired ramping up through this fiscal year.
The only problem is that those rules are costly, and workers aren’t always available to hire. They have contributed to hundreds of beds being taken offline or buildings closing, local nursing home executives say.
Here’s how Pennsylvania Health Care Association President and CEO Zach Shamberg characterized access in his state during a House hearing on Medicaid funding last week:
“Since 2019, more than 30 nursing homes across the state have closed. Dozens have filed for bankruptcy. Numerous reorganizations and changes of ownership have occurred. That’s because caring for seniors in Pennsylvania is like trying to walk up a down escalator.”
This article was originally published in McKnight's Long-Term Care News.
