Long-term care, senior living facilities’ staff stretched thin amid historic labor shortage – Southernminn.com

A short-staffed workplace is nothing new for nursing home, assisted living and other long term care providers — labor shortages are an issue that’s burdened the industry for years. But the seismic shift in the labor force brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a historic exodus of workers who take care of our elderly and most vulnerable.

According to a workforce survey by LeadingAge Minnesota, more than 20% of caregiving positions in the state are currently vacant. The industry is short more than 23,000 critical caregiving positions.

Without adequate staff, many nursing and assisted living facilities have been forced to turn new clients away. Three Links Care Center, in Northfield, filled 87 of its 92 beds in 2019. This year, occupancy fell between 70-80 beds, but not from a lack of referrals.

Laura Lutgens, Three Links’ director of nursing, said they’ve received enough calls from prospective clients to reach maximum capacity, but its facilities don’t have enough staff to provide quality care to a full center.

“I’m getting enough referrals where I could fill the beds, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant environment,” said Lutgens. “It would be really hard for the staff and I don’t want them to burn out.”

A real problem

Three Links isn’t alone. The latest data from LeadingAge found nearly 70% of care centers are limiting the number of residents they serve, up from 40% of care facilities just two months prior.

Those most in need of care are threatened the most by the labor shortage. Many of the potential residents Three Links turns away have additional needs like dementia that require more assistance from staff than their home can provide. Since nursing homes all across the state and the country lack manpower, many residents with higher health care needs are forced to stick with their current provider or reach out to care providers outside of their communities.

It’s an issue that affects the general population of long-term care residents as well. Residents in assisted living that need higher support can’t find a nearby nursing home to take them in and vice versa.

“I can’t discharge someone who is really appropriate for assisted living or home health, because assisted living and home health doesn’t have enough staff,” said Lutgens. “So everyone is sort of stuck in place and it’s not good for care. It’s not a good outcome for them.”

Labor shortages have taken their toll on the entire health care industry. In an October editorial, Ridgeview Medical CEO Mike Phelps warned that staffing shortages along with hospital bed and statewide supply shortages will likely lead to longer wait times for admission.

“Ridgeview has not been immune to these issues, and our staff is working much more and much longer hours to care for the community,” said Phelps. “Due to these compounding factors, you will likely experience longer wait times in our emergency rooms and urgent care locations. We may be forced to prioritize sicker patients ahead of others or ask that you reschedule or delay an elective procedure.”

The crisis in caregiving led Gov. Tim Walz to announce plans to order active members of the Minnesota National Guard to alleviate staffing shortages at care facilities. The move aims to relieve caregiving staff and make room for hospitals to discharge patients into transitional care centers. Walz said more than 400 Minnesota hospitals were waiting for beds to open up.

Teresa Hildebrandt, CEO of Benedictine Living Community in St. Peter, said that, between the pandemic, labor shortages in other industries and unemployment benefits, there was “a perfect storm” of events that pushed caregivers out of the industry.

“I think COVID scared people away at the beginning of the outbreak. A lot of people elected to leave health care. We had staff that were retirement age,” said Hildebrandt. “We had staff that got hired away by other health care systems that needed more staff. The unemployment benefits for some made it easier to stay home and quit employment.”

Since the pandemic first struck, some staff members came back to the assisted living facility, but others left the workforce entirely or took jobs in other industries.

Worker outreach

Benedictine Living dove headfirst into changing up its recruitment process to reach more candidates. In years prior, the assisted living facility advertised for positions on Facebook, but they’ve since expanded to posting on Indeed, Twitter and even Tik Tok.

“One week, we might have six or seven new hires that come through several sites and places that were advertising. Then, for some positions, we can go months without applications,“ said Hildebrandt. “We’re using various forms of media and social media staff referrals to get staff hired. Indeed might be hot for us one week and then the next week we get nothing.”

Many care providers have responded by implementing hiring bonuses and higher wage rates, but offsetting those costs isn’t as simple as charging more for services. Under state law, the daily rate Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes can charge is based on DHS assigned values assessing a resident’s medical condition and the level of care they will be receiving.The DHS then reimburses long term care facilities based on care related costs up to a limit.

“The state sets our rates, so any raises we give above what we’re doing now we have to fund … until the state reimburses us, which is a 21-month delay,” said Hildebrandt. “It’s not so easy for long term care providers to give everyone an increase.”

Long term care facilities are also competing for workers with other industries experiencing labor shortages. Care providers are also taking a financial hit from the limited capacity.

The state Legislature has allocated $250 million for frontline worker pay bonuses, but lawmakers still remain deadlocked on how to distribute it. The Frontline Worker Pay Group was supposed to reach an agreement on how to disburse the payments in September, but in October state Democrats and Republicans released separate plans — unable to come to a compromise.

The proposal by Republican lawmakers focuses payments of up to $1,200 on long term care and hospice workers, nurses, emergency responders and corrections officers. Eligible applicants must have worked at least 1,200 hours between March 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2020.

Democrats sought to distribute smaller individual payments to a wider pool of workers. Under the DFL proposal, approximately $375 would be distributed to eligible workers in long term and home care, health care (excluding physicians), emergency responders, corrections, public health, social services, regulatory sectors, courts, child care, schools, food service, retail, shelters, hotels, building services, transit and transportation, airport services (excluding airlines), manufacturing and vocational rehabilitation.

Applicants would be required to have worked a minimum of 120 hours between March 15, 2020 and June 30, 2021.