Nursing Home Staffing Standards Withstand Challenge, With AARP’s Help

AARP notched a win for nursing home residents and their families this week by helping to fend off an effort to overturn new federal minimum staffing standards.

A bill that would have rolled back the new requirements advanced in the U.S. House on Sept. 18 but failed to come to a vote ahead of a key deadline. A similar bill in the Senate also failed to advance. 

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized the first-ever national staffing standards for federally funded nursing homes. The changes, which AARP championed, were first proposed in September and apply to most of the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes. They come in response to concerns about safety and the adequacy of care in nursing homes as well as the roughly 188,000 nursing home resident deaths since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, proposed bills in the House and Senate would have blocked the rule from taking effect. The repeal effort follows complaints from the nursing home industry that the standards would be difficult to meet because of a nursing workforce shortage.

AARP fought hard to protect the requirements. AARP activists have sent more than 290,000 emails to federal lawmakers in recent weeks, urging them to keep the standards in place.

“We will keep fighting against any threats to the safety of nursing home residents, especially when it comes to making sure staffing standards aren’t cut,” Megan O’Reilly, AARP vice president for health and family, said Friday.

Improved staffing required

The rule requires nursing homes to provide the staffing equivalent of at least 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident per day. That includes 0.55 hours of care from a registered nurse and 2.45 hours of care from a nurse’s aide each day. It also calls for a registered nurse on-site around the clock, seven days a week, to provide skilled care.