Nursing Homes, HHS on Collision Path Over Staffing Mandate

The Biden administration’s push to improve nursing home care through better staffing—and the industry’s insistence that it needs more workers and funding to make it happen—could set the stage for intervention by Congress or the courts.

“We will vigorously defend our nursing home members by any means necessary,” said a statement from Rachel Reeves, spokesperson for the American Health Care Association, the nursing home industry’s largest trade group. “We are exploring all our options.”

The nursing home staffing rule (RIN 0938-AV25) issued this week requires all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities to have 3.48 “hours per resident day” (HPRD) ...