As a former director of social work and admissions at the former Farren Care Center, I continue to be very concerned about nursing homes especially as COVID continues to be a serious problem for residents and staff. It has led to many ongoing problems especially staffing. As you may know on Feb. 28, 2022, the Biden administration announced the most historic nursing home reforms in decades. We must urge our state and federal legislators to include the nursing home provisions previously included in the Build Back Better Act in any upcoming economic legislation. The provisions previously included in the BBB Act would require nursing homes to have at least one registered nurse (RN) 24 hours a day; improve accuracy and reliability of data submitted to CMS, including staffing information and resident assessment data; require auditing of cost reports which will ensure transparency for the billions of dollars of public funds the facilities receive; make improvements to the survey and enforcement system to adequately identify problem areas and hold facilities accountable President Biden also has called on Congress to; provide $500 million dollars for state survey activities; increase per instance penalties for egregious violations to $1 million dollar; provide CMS the authority to impose sanctions on owners and operators even after a facility is closed; provide CMS the authority to require minimum corporate competency/ownership standards; supporting these provisions will help address some of the long-standing issues in long-term care facilities that contributed/contribute to the tragedy of the pandemic and are barriers to quality care. It also will further the goals announced by the Biden Administration on Feb. 28, 2022. Please act now to ask our legislators to save, protect, and improve the lives of nursing home residents. We must have nursing home reform at the national and state to protect all of us.
Judi Fonsh
Leverett
