Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Threatening fines and funding cut-offs, the Trump administration on Tuesday issued new COVID-19 requirements for nursing homes and hospitals, prompting immediate pushback from beleaguered industries.
To check the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it will require facilities to test staff regularly or face fines.
The move comes months after the White House first urged governors to test all nursing home residents and staff. With residents, nursing homes are being required to offer them coronavirus tests if there is an outbreak or if any show symptoms.
Officials also reinforced a reporting mandate for hospitals. It included the possibility of cutting off Medicare and Medicaid funds to facilities that fail to report certain COVID-19 data daily to the federal Health and Human Services department. Hospitals responded with a sharp rebuke, calling the move “heavy-handed” and raising the specter of loss of vital services for local communities in a pandemic, less than three months before Election Day.
Long-term care facilities represent less than 1% of the U.S. population, but they account for 42% of the COVID-19 deaths, with more than 70,000 fatalities reported by the COVID Tracking Project.
“Our recommendations for testing in nursing homes go back as far back as March and April,” said Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. “What’s different about today is that this is now a requirement ... we want to make sure every single nursing home is complying.“
Independent research indicates that the coronavirus most likely gets into nursing homes via staffers who unwittingly bring it in from surrounding communities where it has started to spread. Staffers who have yet to develop symptoms may have no clue that they’re infected.
Verma said the testing requirement for staff will be keyed to the level of virus activity in local areas. If the positive rate is below 5%, nursing homes will have to test staff once a month. If the rate is 5% - 10%, testing will be required once a week. If the rate is above 10%, staff will have to be tested twice a week. Florida, Iowa and Nevada are examples of states where the COVID-19 positive rate is now above 10%.
The government will provide $2.5 billion to help nursing homes with testing costs, Verma also announced. The administration’s campaign to distribute fast-test machines and an initial supply of tests is supposed to be done by the end of September.
Related
Coronavirus updates: Student tests positive at charter school in Roy
Here are the latest updates on COVID-19 from Utah and around the world.The nursing home industry said it supports mandatory testing as long as facilities are given what they need to comply with requirements.
Mark Parkinson, head of the industry group American Health Care Association, said nursing homes in many parts of the country still can’t get timely results on COVID-19 tests.
CMS “must factor in the delays that continue to be a reality,” Parkinson said in a statement. “Otherwise facilities could face fines for circumstances beyond their control and be conducting tests that are so delayed that they have little clinical value.”
