As skilled nursing industry leaders push for new initiatives and launch resources to address the crushing labor shortage, Phil Fogg, president and CEO of Oregon-based Marquis Companies, said his company has had difficulty fulfilling the largest number of job openings it has ever experienced in 33 years of business.
Marquis is hardly alone in confronting this situation.
Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), on Wednesday said that the organization’s finding that 96%of nursing homes are having difficulty in hiring staff is “not surprising.” That’s because, nearly three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry continues to face a serious labor and economic crisis.
Parkinson mentioned that although other sectors, such as hospitals and home health, are paying more for workers, their workforce has essentially recovered.
“There are more workers and doctors offices right now than there were before the pandemic,” he said. “There are more workers in home health and hospice than there were before the pandemic. There are almost as many workers in hospitals as there were before the pandemic. It is unique to long-term care that we faced this crisis.”
To help address this situation the organization has launched Careers in Caring, a dedicated website where long-term care providers and professionals can find a one-stop-shop of resources and tools to support their hiring efforts. The website also houses informational videos, messaging materials, social media tools, graphics and much more, to help the long term care profession build a pipeline of dedicated caregivers.
“It’s going to take a lot of ideas and policies that are implemented together. Rather than just complaining about this as an association and our members as providers, we’re trying to figure out what we can do to solve the problem,” he said.
Parkinson also had more sharp words regarding a potential federal minimum staffing mandate for nursing homes.
“It will take a Herculean effort, just to get us back to the workforce that we had before the pandemic. It will take an all hands on deck approach for us to get that quarter of a million workers back (and) to think that the administration may require a workforce beyond that number, and then punish facilities and potentially force them to close when they can’t meet that number, it’s just completely unrealistic. It’s not connected with what’s actually happening out there in the real world. So we would urge the (Biden) administration to rethink that proposal and to be very cautious, at least until we get our workforce back,” Parkinson said.
More than half of nursing home providers say they are having to turn away prospective residents, and more than two-thirds are concerned their facility may have to close due to persistent workforce challenges, according to AHCA research.
The workforce crisis is contributing to the financial instability for the chronically underfunded sector, as more than half (55% ) of nursing home providers say they are operating at a loss and may not be able to continue operating for more than a year at the current pace (52%).
Public policy changes must be part of the solution, Fogg argued. He said the industry needs the support of state and federal policymakers to increase the number of workforce visas that come in every year.
Fogg advocates for building the educational system at the high school level so as to provide for an improved pipeline for nursing staff. He also suggests fast tracking licensing for health care jobs.
Moreover, the workforce shortage is creating serious access issues, Fogg said, because facilities do not have enough staff, suppressing total occupancy levels and limiting admissions, especially in rural communities.
“You’re literally seeing facilities close because they cannot get the staff to meet not only their state and federal requirements, but to care for the people within that community,” he said.
Furthermore, the staffing crisis in skilled nursing facilities is weighing on the entire health care system, with hospitals unable to discharge patients into post-acute care centers.
“It’s in the interest of the entire health care continuum to support a long term care workforce recruitment campaign, like Careers in Caring,” AHCA told Skilled Nursing News in an emailed statement. “Patients should be in the most appropriate, preferred setting for their specific needs, which means ensuring every aspect of the healthcare continuum has the staff and support it needs to provide the best care possible.”
On Indeed.com, there are more than 133,000 current job openings in nursing homes.
In addition to providing operators with resources, Careers in Caring will launch a national campaign to educate job seekers about the career opportunities in long term care.
“This will not be a complete solution, but we think it’s a part of the solution,” Parkinson said. “And again, we want to do everything that we can to get our workers back.”
