COMP NEWS – The healthcare industry is struggling to find long-term healthcare providers. The core issue, many workers say, is that their pay is far too low for the responsibilities, stresses, and risks of the job.

The industry has dealt with labor shortages and high turnover for years, problems that were made more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Nursing care facilities shed employees after the pandemic’s onset, and the workforce has not fully recovered, federal data shows. A March survey of hundreds of nursing home providers by the American Health Care Association found almost all have open jobs and difficulty recruiting. And a recent nursing home staffing mandate from the Biden administration has panicked facility administrators who say they’re already scraping to fill vacancies.

 

Turnover is so bad at nursing homes that some see all of their employees leave within a year, said Alice Bonner, director of strategic partnerships for the Center for Innovative Care in Aging at Brown University.

 

“The people who are left are working much harder, double shifts, overtime and working with agency and temporary workers,” Bonner said.

Salaries for home healthcare workers are generally low, with the average salary hovering around $34,000. Comparable salaries can be obtained in retail roles, which require less education and fewer specialized skill sets.

The average annual salary for home health and personal care aides was $33,380 in May 2023, according to the bureau. These earnings were similar to cafeteria attendants and retail sales workers.

 

Direct care workers are typically on the low end of pay scale. Roughly half of them rely on public assistance, according to a January Department of Health and Human Services report.

 

Experts point to funding as a reason wages are low. Medicaid is the primary payer of long-term care services, but many stakeholders argue Medicaid reimbursement rates are insufficient to properly compensate workers.

 

Some states have made efforts to bolster the workforce, such as requiring a percentage of providers’ Medicaid reimbursements go to direct care worker wages. Others have used funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act to boost wages and recruitment efforts. Meanwhile, the Biden administration finalized a rule in April requiring 80% of Medicaid payments for homecare services be used to pay workers.

To read more about Amazon workers’ struggles to live on their wages, click here.

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