In no area do we feel this more strongly than in labor. We dedicate a tremendous amount of time and resources into recruiting high quality caregivers - the type of workers that you would trust with a loved one. Yet, in the current marketplace, they leave their nursing home jobs all too often for other employment that is not only much more lucrative but also less demanding. Three out of four skilled nursing facility patients' care is paid for by Medicare or Medicaid, both government programs. The financial consequences many of us are faced with are beyond our control.
Decisions made by government entities have a profound effect on patient care.
If SNF PPS were implemented by HCFA to achieve the cost reductions originally targeted by the Congress, we wouldn't be here today. The GAO and others have recently testified that there is no crisis in long term care. This flies in the face of sound research and reality and is an irresponsible and questionable claim to make. The resulting payment rates are artificially suppressed. Guy King reviewed real increases in the cost of delivering skilled care between 1995 and 1998.