I live in Maine in one of two urban areas. I volunteer at two different nursing homes. Neither of them are short staffed. The story is different in some of the more rural areas and in the southern part of the state with larger populations. Two coastal towns near me have large continuing care communities. They both have paid, along with a salary while in training, for their CNA’s. They also offer paid classes if the person signs a contract to work for them to get other types of healthcare degrees. I think this is good for both those seeking education (no student loan debt) and for the facilities who need workers.
A large continuing care community is being built near me. There are free educational opportunities for students who may want to work there in healthcare.
Creative solutions are needed to solve the healthcare worker shortages.
I really don't know what the solution is, or in fact if there is a solution. Sometimes situations need to reach catastrophic level before being addressed, and by then the situation is almost out of control.
It's clear to me that this is not a priority issue for the current "administration". Depending on the next election, there may be more support for exploring options.
But the funding is a critical issue, and, unfortunately, the older individual and caregiver populations have limited lobbyist support outside of AARP. We need resources like the gun lobby, which is very aggressive. But where do we get or find these resources?
We need champions in Congress, especially those who are experienced and knowledgeable of caregiving issues.
I think we also need to build a coalition of all affected parties and companies, but that still involves disparate interests. For profit private health care providers will obviously have their own goals, and they'll have more clout than individuals.
Unfortunately, I think the situation will get much worse before it gets better.
But thanks for posting on this subject; it's something that really will become critical in a matter of time.
Becky, if there's not enough workers, not enough money AND you can't incentivize young people to do the NH work with higher wages, I'm not sure there IS a "creative" solution. Even if Medicaid was flush with money and increased its compensation to workers, there still wouldn't be enough young workers or skilled workers. The younger ones today don't seem to want to do that work at any price, which is very different from prior generations.
If our stupid politicians would actually do the work we hired them to do they could have solved the immigration decades ago. If I were queen I would create an amnesty program for the parents of Dreamers with the requirement that they perform XX years of elderly care work to earn their spot here (while paying them a competitive wage). After that they can be citizens, and so can their kids. The govt MUST start letting in more people legally. If they come from the south border, they are usually unskilled and knowing little English, if any. This is a problem even if you are a lower-wage NH employee as many seniors can hardly comprehend what you say when your English is good. The govt can't really raise taxes to fund more towards Medicaid because it still doesn't address the labor shortage. The only solution is to let in more low-wage, unskilled labor and it needs to happen now.
Unfortunately, no amount of lobbying pressure or taxation will magically come up with more laborers. More laborers is the beginning of the solution to this problem. The past several administrations have dithered while not enforcing the immigration laws already on the books, and not seeing the need to modernize and streamline the citizenship process and speed it up. But this is how govt usually operates. This is why you don't want more of it. Collectively, the govt is stupid and incompetent, and all it knows how to do is waste the money it takes from you to throw at a problem it hasn't given any real thought how to solve. Sorry, but it runs everything like the VA and Post Office. I agree the problem will get much worse before it gets better. By that time many tens of thousands of people -- and their families -- will have gone broke and suffered trying to care for LOs. It's outrageous.
Geaton777, You’re probably right, especially about letting in more workers. That would help. I don’t want to see the expansion of Medicaid until they do away with people being able to shelter assets instead of paying for care.
The number of med school grads of family practitioners is woefully short. These are our future PCP’s and very few new doctors are choosing this as a specialty.
Thus one of the reasons “Medicare for all” will not work. Not only will there be a shortage of CG in SNF but actual primary care physicians.
Many states are allowing CRNP’s to run their own practice and are not required to have a Physician review their orders. As a RN, I don’t know if I am comfortable with that, even though most of the CRNP’s I have worked with are excellent practitioners. But they don’t have the education and experience as a physician. The gap in providers is being filled with “physician extenders” like PA’s.
I don’t know the solution & I’ve been a RN for 40 years. All I do know is that things aren’t getting better for seniors especially those with no assets.
and this has happened even without Medicare for all. When I was in high school, there was something called Student Defense Loans run by Federal Govt. Loan rates were low, and did not start till graduation. What was good about it was the encouragement to become a doctor or teacher in a rural or low-income area. For every year working there, 10% of loan was forgiven, up to 50%! Remarkable success.
Watch what you write. See what I wrote below? Yesterday a robo-call offered me a new place to send my 'student loan money.' Never had THAT scam before I wrote this.
awww.. GrannieAnnie, when you visit this website - or google/Amazon/ Facebook/etc. you are observable by the third-party trackers that the site embeds in its code. This is what you agree to when joining. I haven’t looked at the privacy policy here but I’m sure this is stated within 🙂
What can you do? You can use a “virtual” phone number just like you would a virtual email to sign up when you join a site or create a credit card # to purchase something online. No need to use your personal number or email.
Actually there’s loads of things you can do to ensure privacy but seriously it isn’t worth worrying about. *tosses tinfoil away
As the others have replied it’s most likely robocalls.
A large continuing care community is being built near me. There are free educational opportunities for students who may want to work there in healthcare.
Creative solutions are needed to solve the healthcare worker shortages.
It's clear to me that this is not a priority issue for the current "administration". Depending on the next election, there may be more support for exploring options.
But the funding is a critical issue, and, unfortunately, the older individual and caregiver populations have limited lobbyist support outside of AARP. We need resources like the gun lobby, which is very aggressive. But where do we get or find these resources?
We need champions in Congress, especially those who are experienced and knowledgeable of caregiving issues.
I think we also need to build a coalition of all affected parties and companies, but that still involves disparate interests. For profit private health care providers will obviously have their own goals, and they'll have more clout than individuals.
Unfortunately, I think the situation will get much worse before it gets better.
But thanks for posting on this subject; it's something that really will become critical in a matter of time.
If our stupid politicians would actually do the work we hired them to do they could have solved the immigration decades ago. If I were queen I would create an amnesty program for the parents of Dreamers with the requirement that they perform XX years of elderly care work to earn their spot here (while paying them a competitive wage). After that they can be citizens, and so can their kids. The govt MUST start letting in more people legally. If they come from the south border, they are usually unskilled and knowing little English, if any. This is a problem even if you are a lower-wage NH employee as many seniors can hardly comprehend what you say when your English is good. The govt can't really raise taxes to fund more towards Medicaid because it still doesn't address the labor shortage. The only solution is to let in more low-wage, unskilled labor and it needs to happen now.
Thus one of the reasons “Medicare for all” will not work. Not only will there be a shortage of CG in SNF but actual primary care physicians.
Many states are allowing CRNP’s to run their own practice and are not required to have a Physician review their orders. As a RN, I don’t know if I am comfortable with that, even though most of the CRNP’s I have worked with are excellent practitioners. But they don’t have the education and experience as a physician. The gap in providers is being filled with “physician extenders” like PA’s.
I don’t know the solution &
I’ve been a RN for 40 years. All I do know is that things aren’t getting better for seniors especially those with no assets.
You never gave this site your phone number so how do you think the phone call is connected?
What can you do? You can use a “virtual” phone number just like you would a virtual email to sign up when you join a site or create a credit card # to purchase something online. No need to use your personal number or email.
Actually there’s loads of things you can do to ensure privacy but seriously it isn’t worth worrying about. *tosses tinfoil away
As the others have replied it’s most likely robocalls.