Nurse helping nursing home resident
Credit: Morsa Images/Getty Images Plus

Long-term care providers would get a more than $1 billion boost to help with workforce struggles under the most recent version of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act. 

An updated version of the legislation from the U.S. House includes $1.6 billion for workforce training grants that would be available to all long-term care providers, from fiscal years 2023 through 2026, according to LeadingAge analysis. About $415 million in grant funding would specifically be for nursing homes.

“The bill implements historic allocations that address the workforce crisis aging services providers are experiencing,” the organization wrote Thursday. “The funds could be used for implementing plans to strengthen recruitment, retention and career advancement of the long-term care and direct care workforce.” 

The bill also includes $1 billion for direct care workforce competitive grants to help recruit, train and retain direct care workers, and an $150 billion to expand the home- and community-based workforce. 

The updated bill also drew criticism from the American Health Care Association for including a provision that would require long-term care facilities to have a registered nurse on staff 24 hours a day. 

“We are ardent supporters of having a registered nurse on-staff in nursing homes 24 hours a day,” Clif Porter, AHCA’s senior vice president of government relations, said in a statement last week. “However, the provision currently drafted in the House version of the budget reconciliation bill is an unfunded mandate that fails to offer any support to nursing homes.”