The federal government began sending $1.1 billion in coronavirus relief funding to nursing homes this week to help providers cope with lost revenues and increased expenses caused by the pandemic.
More than two-thirds of eligible nursing homes will receive incentive payments this week for successfully reducing COVID-related infections and deaths between September and October.
Xavier Becerra, chosen as secretary of HHS, is California’s attorney general, a former member of Congress and a champion of the ACA and other long-term care industry causes. Rochelle Walensky, M.D., a front line pandemic response leader from Massachusetts, was tapped for CDC director.
A federal advisory panel’s overwhelming vote to give long-term care residents and healthcare workers first access to COVID-19 vaccines is an “important step in the right direction,” industry stakeholders say.
A former leader of the Food and Drug Administration is warning long-term care providers to stay vigilant and proactive as they head into the “seventh inning” of the coronavirus public health crisis.
The leader of the nation’s second largest nursing home association challenged providers to be “catalysts of change” for the long-term care sector as it works to move past the coronavirus public health crisis.
A leading long-term care provider association was among those incensed Monday afternoon after President Trump sent a tweet telling people he was leaving the hospital after being treated for COVID-19 over the weekend. “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life,” Trump said, in part.
Healthcare stakeholders who regularly come into contact with skilled nursing residents should be subject to COVID-19 testing mandates similar to those for nursing home employees, a prominent long-term care group said Wednesday in a pair of letters to the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Providers cheered federal health officials’ decision to withdraw a proposal they warned could cut up to $50 billion nationwide from the Medicaid program annually.
Even with additional testing resources from the federal government, nursing home operators say current costs combined with new surveillance requirements are unsustainable.
