Even as overall healthcare employment has rebounded slightly, job numbers in nursing homes continue their downward spiral.
After more than a decade of gradual losses, nursing home employment began a freefall in April as the novel coronavirus spread across the country. And it hasn't recovered.
Nursing homes need more workers to handle the challenges of COVID-19, yet jobs remain vacant. Low wages, limited healthcare benefits and hard work make these jobs hard to fill, experts say. The added threat of contracting COVID-19 makes it even more difficult.
"Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a workforce crisis in long-term care," said Zach Shamberg, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, which represents long-term care and senior service providers. "It is not easy work."
Since February, nursing homes and residential care facilities have lost 264,000 jobs, a 7.8% decrease, according to an Altarum analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In December alone, nursing homes lost about 6,100 jobs.
"To say the sector has been hard hit has been an understatement. It's now a more dangerous place to work, and people understand that. I'm not surprised people are worried about going into nursing homes," said Anne Montgomery, co-director of the program to improve elder care at Altarum, a not-for-profit health research and consulting organization.
Yet demand continues to climb. Despite more potential residents choosing home care during the pandemic, the aging population in the U.S. and a pent-up demand for rehabilitation after postponed elective surgeries create a need for staff that nursing homes just can't fill. Some are even halting hospital admissions because they don't have the staff to care for more residents.
"Really, we just have a great demand, an incredible demand in this workforce," Montgomery said. Long-term care is one of the top three industries in terms of projected growth, she said.
"The jobs are certainly available," Shamberg said.
During the pandemic, nursing homes have had to get creative. With the help of federal funding, some have been able to provide hazard pay to workers, offer overtime to cover shifts and train some new workers. CMS last year issued a waiver that allowed nursing homes to employ temporary nurse aides for longer than four months, instead of requiring additional certification, to help in the direct care of residents.
But experts fear that once the pandemic ends, workers will leave the industry, driven by the stresses of the job.
In August 2020, the Pennsylvania Health Care Association found in a survey of members that workers are burnt out, exhausted and fatigued, sentiments reflected by healthcare workers nationwide.
"Even though the vaccine is here, and even though it is being distributed, you have a lot of staff that could potentially leave after everything," Shamberg said. "Our biggest fear is what will happen when the dust settles…There is the very real fear there could be a mass exodus from long-term care."
Loosening regulations on training, such as allowing a blended in-person and online training, could help attract more workers and increasing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements would give providers more funds to reinvest in workers, Shamberg said.
"Long-term care has really been in the spotlight. A lot of the flaws and the shortcomings have really been exposed," Shamberg said. "It's a broken system right now."
Montgomery said that the pandemic, for all of its negatives, has helped raise the profile of long-term care workers in the public eye, which could help drive demand for better funding and conditions, such as better staffing ratios or a living wage, for those workers, either privately or through federal assistance.
"I think that message is starting to translate," Montgomery said. "That doesn't mean it will change the picture quickly."
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January 19, 2021 at 06:00PM
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Nursing home employment continues freefall, industry prepares for worker exodus - Modern Healthcare
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