In a message on improving nursing homes during his State of the Union on March 1, 2022, President Joe Biden recognized one of the primary issues is the healthcare industry’s struggle with recruitment.
 
The president’s proposals for nursing homes involved new requirements to improve public reporting, operations and safety at nursing homes. That includes staff recruitment and retention, collected under the title “Creating Pathways to Good-paying Jobs with the Free and Fair Choice to Join a Union,” with a focus on support for new nurse aides.
 
This included three tasks for CMS in hopes of recruiting aides for nursing homes:
  • Establishing new requirements to ensure nurse aide trainees are notified about their potential entitlement to training reimbursement upon employment. “
  • Developing a template to assist and encourage states requesting to tie Medicaid payments to clinical staff wages and benefits, including additional pay for experience and specialization.
  • Working with the Department of Labor and external entities — including training intermediaries, registered apprenticeship programs, labor-management training programs, and labor unions — to conduct a robust nationwide campaign to recruit, train, retain and transition workers into long-term care careers, with pathways into health-care careers like registered and licensed nurses.
At this point, the focus is solely on nursing homes, notes Bill Dombi, president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.
“We have no indication that any element of the plan would be extended to home care,” he says. “Nevertheless, it deserves watching particularly on the workforce improvement elements such as compensation and career opportunities. Home care has those needs as well.”