Examining the Implications of the Revised Nursing Facility Rule and Identifying Facilities That May Comply with Enhanced Staffing Standards.

This text appears to be a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) analyzing the impact of new federal requirements for nursing facility staffing. Here are the main points:

Background: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized a rule requiring nursing facilities to have a minimum number of staff on duty at all times.

Key findings:

• In 45 states, fewer than half of nursing facilities have enough staff to meet the new requirements.
• About 1 in 5 nursing facilities would meet fully-implemented minimum staffing standards in the final rule with current staffing levels.
• Rural facilities are more likely to not meet the requirements compared to urban facilities.

Methodology: The analysis uses data from Nursing Home Compare, a publicly available dataset that provides information on quality of care and key characteristics for approximately 14,900 Medicare and/or Medicaid-certified nursing facilities. The analysis drops about 3% of nursing facilities due to missing data.

Limitations: The analysis does not look at facilities that meet the requirement to have an RN on staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7) due to limitations in publicly available data.

Implications: The report highlights concerns about the potential unintended consequences of the new requirements, including increased costs for nursing facilities and the potential impact on state budgets and federal spending. The need for nursing facility care is expected to increase as the population ages, which may intensify these challenges.

Overall, the report suggests that many nursing facilities face significant challenges in meeting the new staffing requirements, particularly rural facilities.