Tag: CANHR

Staffing Waivers for Hundreds of Nursing Homes Raise CANHR’s Concern

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) said it remains concerned that the state’s Department of Public Health’s (DPH’s) “excessive focus on waiving California’s minimum staffing requirements” is harming residents’ ability to receive needed care.

In its latest newsletter at http://www.canhr.org/ CANHR noted that DPH has posted lists of the California nursing homes that it has approved to staff at levels below California’s minimum staffing requirements. Nursing homes with approved waivers are allowed to staff below the daily minimum 3.5 direct care service hours per resident requirement or the minimum 2.4 certified nursing assistant (CNA) hours per resident requirement, or both.

CANHR pointed out and provided hyperlinks showing that more than half of California nursing homes sought staffing waivers. DPH has created two types of waivers: the workforce shortage waiver and the patient needs waiver.

As of January 31, 2019, DPH had granted workforce shortage waivers to 117 nursing homes. DPH has not posted any information on the nursing homes that were denied waivers, but 344 skilled nursing facilities originally applied for this waiver.

DPH had granted patient needs waivers to 245 nursing homes. 391 facilities applied for this waiver, which CANHR has challenged because it is not legislatively authorized.

For more information about nursing homes, see the home page www.wbeerman.com.

CANHR Calls for Radical Changes to Address Problems With California’s Long Term Care System

San Francisco, CA – Calling for an overhaul in the Department of Public Health — the agency responsible for oversight of California’s nursing homes — California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) released a white paper that it says summarizes major problems in long term care in California, and offering suggestions as to what needs to be done to improve nursing home and residential care for elders and persons with disabilities.

The paper, titled “California’s Broken Long Term Care System,” outlines problems in oversight, enforcement, and funding in nursing homes, residential care, home and community-based services, and elder abuse prevention and prosecution. 

In a November 3 email of the CANHR newsletter, CANHR listed the following issues:

  • A need for replacing the leadership at the Department of Public Health and the Center for Health Care Quality with “visionary consumer protection leaders who will reform the Department and directly address a crisis in nursing home care that residents face.”
  • The need for  funding for the Department of Social Services that is adequate to meaningfully inspect and oversee California’s 7,200+ residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs), which house more than 152,000 frail elders, and oversight of 66,000+ other facilities in California.
  • Increase availability and access to cost-saving home and community-based alternatives for those who do not wish to die in a nursing home.
  • Increase remedies for victims of residents’ rights violations and elder abuse, including a private right of action.

CANHR called on the newly elected Governor, Gavin Newsom,  and legislators “to address this crisis in long term care and to create new models of care where the health and safety of residents takes priority and where elder abuse becomes a distant memory.”

CLICK HERE to read the report.

California nursing homes seek staffing level waivers

The California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) reports that the California Department of Public Health (DPH) has posted lists of the California nursing homes that have sought its approval to staff below the minimum staffing requirements the Legislature adopted last year in SB 97.

Thus far, 344 skilled nursing facilities have applied for “workforce shortage” waivers, while 391 facilities applied for “patient needs” waivers. The massive numbers of waiver requests expose the rampant understaffing in California nursing homes, CANHR said. Moreover, the waiver process is having the perverse effect of DPH endorsing understaffing at California’s most poorly staffed nursing homes rather than enforcing the (highly inadequate) minimum staffing requirements, CANHR said.

The federal government’s requirement for nursing homes to electronically report their staffing levels is a step in the right direction but obviously does not resolve staffing problems. The federal government does not have numerical minimum staffing requirements.

See the latest CANHR newsletter