As nursing home operators struggle to staff their buildings during the ongoing labor crisis, hourly rates have spiked for critical positions like the certified nursing assistant (CNA), licensed practical nurse (LPN) and registered nurse (RN).
These positions have increased between 9.38% and 11.15% this year, according to the 2022-2023 Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Services (HCS) Nursing Home Salary & Benefits Report published on Friday.
About 1,283 nursing homes participated in the 45th annual report, providing compensation data on 119,100-plus employees. Forty-six management positions and 54 nonmanagement positions were incorporated; the breakdown of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations was 51.36% and 48.64%, respectively.
The spike in 2022 is a continued response to the pandemic and ongoing staffing issues. CNAs for example, saw a 4.76% increase in 2020, then another 7.13% increase in 2021 and most recently a 11.15% increase in 2022.
The national hourly rate for CNAs in 2022, representing the 50th percentile of data, was $16.87, according to the benefits report.
Turnover rates for the position, meanwhile, ballooned from 39.39% in 2020 to 54.81% this year.
Of the positions, LPNs saw the lowest hourly rate increase of 9.38%, though that’s nearly double the increase in 2021 and triple that of 2020 to land at $26.46 per hour.
RNs saw hourly rate increases go from 3.78% in 2020 to 11.08% in 2022, at $34.58 per hour.
More than half of respondents said they paid sign-on bonuses to attract new employees: $4,566 on average for RNs; $3,494 for LPNs; and $2,146 for CNAs.
As part of the report, HCS asked additional survey questions for participating operators regarding the impact of Covid-19 on nursing homes: notably if management increased the number of hours worked for employee groups.
While about 68.1% of participants said they didn’t increase the number of hours worked overall, certain clinical staff members like CNAs, LPNs and RNs worked longer days. Meanwhile, about 88.3% of facilities didn’t report a change in overtime amounts for employees.
Only 30.9% of operators said they made pay adjustments for key employees, including retention bonuses, one-time bonuses and hazard pay; key employees are defined as staff needed to provide or maintain day-to-day services, such as department heads, RNs, CNAs and LPNs.
About 13.2% of respondents made adjustments to merit or total increase budgets, meaning they adjusted the facility budget to accommodate salary raises and cost of living adjustments.
HCS made note that not all participants filled out the survey completely or at all; 1,229 facilities, or 95.79% of total respondents answered the Covid survey questions.
Facilities were also asked if they had layoffs due to the pandemic – 86.4% said they didn’t. About 97.9% of respondents said they didn’t reduce hours for employee groups, while noting housekeeping, dietary aides and kitchen or dining staff as outliers for hour reduction.
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