Larger nursing homes could be on the hook for as much as another $15,000 per week to comply with newly announced COVID-19 testing requirements for staff members, LeadingAge warned in a mid-September report.
The organization’s pandemic situation report highlighted immediate challenges and needs of aging services providers. Testing and personal protective equipment costs remained the top need and concern.
Expenses for testing at a 150-bed facility could cost between $3,750 and $15,000 per week, depending on staffing levels and outlying community COVID-19 rates, LeadingAge analysts explained.
The latter triggers how often workers will be tested. The frequency is once monthly for employees working in a community with a positivity rate below 5%. The rate jumps to weekly for areas with 5% to 10% positivity rates. Above 10% means staff have to be tested twice weekly.
“In addition to the costs of test kits — antigen ($25/test), PCR ($150/test), Abbott point-of-care ($5/test) — providers must also pay for test supplies, shipping PCR test samples to labs for processing, and hiring or reallocating and training staff to perform the tests, as well as the PPE that must be used while administering the tests,” report authors explained.
Prices for PPE also have been skyrocketing, thanks to reopenings around the country that have forced operators to compete with other institutions for supplies.
An August survey by the American Health Care Association found that 72% of nursing home operators didn’t believe they would be able to sustain operations for another year if current conditions continue.
From the October 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
