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The Journal Gazette: Facilities serving seniors lobby as mandates constrict workforce

By 2030, 1 out of every 5 people living in Indiana will be a senior citizen, according to population projections released by the Indiana Business Research Center. This projected increase represents an unprecedented number of elderly individuals in our state.

Silver Birch Living is a growing family of premier affordable assisted living communities that promote wellness, convenience and community with nine locations across Indiana, including two in Fort Wayne.

We are designed to serve seniors of all financial backgrounds, including Medicaid, and offer a full spectrum of personalized services to help older adults maintain their independence in a supportive, caring environment.

Our hard work recently earned our locations a 2023 Commitment to Quality Award from the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living.

To continue to provide this quality of care, I joined my industry colleagues during a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., recently to advocate for strengthening the assisted living industry, including the workforce.

We met with several Indiana lawmakers and their staff, collaborating with them to support policies that would bolster the quality of care for seniors as they age.

Lawmakers we met with included U.S. Reps. Erin Houchin, Frank J. Mrvan, Greg Pence and Victoria Spartz, as well as Sen. Todd Young.

A primary focus of our conversation was presenting how the proposed nursing home minimum staffing requirements through the Unfunded Staffing Mandate Proposal will not solve the health care labor crisis, but exaggerate it.

Almost 900,000, or one-fifth of registered nurses, intend to leave the profession by 2027, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. And there’s no pipeline of new nurses to replace them.

Enrollment in nursing programs decreased for the first time in more than two decades last year. Meanwhile, the changing demographics of the country demonstrate that with a rapidly growing elderly population, we won’t have enough younger people to care for them in the future.

As Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, put it best in a letter to President Joe Biden this week, “A skilled and available workforce is the industry’s biggest challenge.”

It’s obvious that the federal minimum staffing mandate sounds like a good idea, but in practice, it is not.

Staffing issues can lead to closures and the elimination of key services. According to SaveOurSeniors.org, 500 facilities already have shuttered since 2022.

The reason? “Often due to an inability to find workers,” cites the report.

For communities such as Silver Birch, accepting Medicaid is a huge benefit for our residents, yet poses additional challenges from a workforce standpoint.

“Facilities that primarily care for residents on Medicaid won’t have the resources to recruit staff or pay for this mandate,” Parkinson wrote. “Those facilities, as well as those who they serve and employ, will be hurt the most.”

Click here to read the rest of the story on the Journal Gazette’s website >>