LeadingAge Kansas members Nate Glendening from Prairie Wind Villa Assisted Living and Phillips County Retirement Center and Karen Sturchio from Kansas Christian Home trekked to Washington, DC last week to urge the Kansas congressional delegation to support changes to OBRA, the statute that regulates Medicare and Medicaid nursing homes. They personally met with Rep. Roger Marshall (R-3d), and with senior staff from Rep. Yoder, Rep. Jenkins, Sen. Roberts and Sen. Moran’s offices.
The main message was asking support to change the current law that automatically shuts down nurse aid training programs for a mandatory 2 years based on a fine of $5000 or more, regardless of whether the deficiency was related to care. This problem is particularly acute in Kansas, where over 90% of nursing homes have lost their authority to train new staff. As Karen and Nate pointed out, the loss of training rights is unrelated to the reasons for the deficiency and the inability to train new staff has a negative impact on staffing and improving quality.
Nate and Karen asked our members of Congress to support legislation that would make the loss of training rights discretionary and reinstated once the deficiency has been corrected. Rep. Marshall and the other offices were well aware of the problems that LeadingAge members in Kansas confront, and Nate and Karen look forward to continuing to work with these offices in support of “fixes” to the survey system that enhance quality for residents.
Changing the law to eliminate the automatic nature of the nurse aid training penalty is one of the top issues that LeadingAge national will be advocating for on March 21, LeadingAge’s Hill Day. Thanks to Nate and Karen for going to DC in advance to share their experiences with their delegation.
It’s not too late to sign up for Lobby Day at the national conference, March 18-21 in DC.
