The plight of the immigrant workforce: A moral dilemma of the current LTC environment
By
Moroni Fernandez Cajavilca
Jan 22, 2024
The long-term care industry has supported increasing the number of immigrant workers as a solution to the nationwide staffing shortages but has largely ignored the potential exploitative environment of...
Revamping CMS survey data integration amid regulatory lag in nursing home oversight
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 08, 2023
The report titled “Uninspected and Neglected” by the majority staff of the US Senate Special Committee on Aging brings attention to a pressing issue: the severe understaffing of inspection agencies...
Falling by the wayside
By
Steven Levenson
Oct 24, 2023
This month’s column invokes several previous columns, one about medications and the other about knowing if we know what we don’t know. A recent medical journal article concluded that falls in...
It’s me. I’m the problem.
By
Gary Tetz
Oct 05, 2023
Sadly, I didn’t get to the American Health Care Association convention this year. Actually, it’s been a full decade since I last personally attended one of these auspicious gatherings, Now, lest...
Minimum standards or wishful thinking?
By
Irving Stackpole
John Sheridan
Oct 02, 2023
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services notice of proposed rulemaking and the report on which it is based have made the foundational point that more staff in nursing homes will result in better patient...
An unwelcome warning
By
Gary Tetz
Jul 27, 2023
While plodding a narrow, precipitous path high on the flank of Mt. Rainier this week, I saw a father and his young daughter approaching on the trail. She was an adorable child of maybe 4 or 5, all decked...
Restart rehabilitation
By
Jean Wendland Porter
Dec 06, 2023
I’ve been a physical therapist for a very long time, and as I prepare to renew my license for the four millionth time, I reflect on how my profession has changed. All of our professions have changed...
The federal Medicaid bait and switch
By
Stephen A. Moses
Nov 06, 2023
It was supposed to work like this. When people need long-term care, they pay privately until they’re impoverished. Then and only then Medicaid helps. To avoid that outcome, people were urged to save...
Biden’s regulatory Death Star
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 11, 2023
Despite federal data showing that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to massive job losses for nursing and residential care facilities – with the workforce 218,200 workers smaller last month...
Infection control without adding staff — it’s not just a fluke
By
Mary Cole
Jul 26, 2023
In a recent letter to leaders in Congress, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) highlighted the “astonishing lack of attention to infection prevention and control...