Fitzpatrick Questions Witness About The ‘Increasing Staff Shortages’ In The Healthcare Industry

1 hour ago

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) questioned experts about the healthcare workforce shortages.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Thank you. Mr. Fitzpatrick, you are now recognized.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. A key challenge facing my constituents

00:08back home in Buxton-Montgomery County in Pennsylvania has been the increasing staff

00:13shortages in the healthcare industry, forcing many patients to be turned away for necessary care

00:19or alternatively to receive suboptimal care to meet their needs. This is coupled with increased

00:25pressure on the professionals administering this very care. As has been brought up in this hearing,

00:31staffing for these specialized post-acute care facilities is especially concerning in my home

00:38state. In Pennsylvania, PAs projected to have the most dire shortage of staff for skilled nursing

00:44facilities by 2026 and reportedly nearly half of Pennsylvania Healthcare Association members

00:50plan to close or sell at least one of their SNFs this year. Dr. Madison, in your professional

00:57experiences in home health, can you speak to how staffing has changed in recent years and, moreover,

01:05how these potential challenges impacted your ability to treat your patients?

01:09I certainly can. Thank you for the question. In Lubbock, Texas, six years ago, we did a study,

01:14and at that one point, we're a city of 260,000. We were 1,000 RN short and 1,000 LVN short,

01:20and that's a backfill hole that you can never backfill enough. So, we are dealing with it

01:25right now. Telehealth would help with that tremendously. If we could do telehealth visits,

01:30one particular nurse could make 20 visits a day instead of the normal eight that they make. For

01:36those patients that don't need to actually have hands-on care that day, I think telehealth would

01:41be a great way to take care of those patients. We also lost a lot of nurses during COVID because

01:46they did not want to be subjected to some of the viruses and stuff that are out there, and then

01:52also you have disabled nurses that can no longer handle the hospital care work that's demanded of

01:57them. We could put them to work also. And, Mr. Dungilli, in your experiences

02:04and observation, are you able to speak to how staffing concerns have impacted your administration

02:09of care? Yes. Like Texas, the state of Nebraska in 2025 is forecasted to have a shortage of

02:20RNs of over 5,000, and so you can't absorb that. And so, I think what we find within my state is

02:31holding beds that could potentially be opened if we had adequate staff. It's widespread,

02:38not only in the post-acute sector, but in the acute hospital sector as well. So, it does impact

02:44the provision of care and patients' access to it. And moving on to long-term care hospitals,

02:50these hospitals play an essential role in caring for our seniors with serious conditions. Ms.

02:56Graber, several years ago, Congress created the criteria for LTCH eligibility requiring a patient

03:04to have an ICU stay or 96 hours on a ventilator for an LTCH to receive a higher payment.

03:12What was the rationale of this change?

03:18Thank you for the question. I believe part of the rationale behind it was that the Medicare

03:24Payment Advisory Commission had recommended to Congress to put patient criteria into place for

03:29long-term care hospitals. MedPAC recommended an 8-day ICU stay, and when Congress legislated it,

03:38they codified a 3-ICU day. So, I believe that that was some of the background behind

03:43how Congress got to the 2013 policy.

03:46Got it. Back to you, Mr. DenGilley. Are there patients who might benefit from an LTCH care

03:52who do not meet this criteria? How would this change impact their care?

03:57Well, thank you for that follow-up question, because, yes, we can understand the reason to

04:01create criteria, but we believe that 3-day in the ICU stay went too far. There are other patients

04:09who are critically and chronically ill who could benefit from the services that a long-term care

04:16hospital provides that haven't maybe been in the ICU. There are certain hospitals, for instance,

04:23one hospital in our market right now has 25 patients waiting in the emergency room,

04:30waiting for a patient bed. Some of those patients can get into a unit within the hospital that can

04:38deal with their critical chronic condition instead of the ICU, but because they're not in the ICU,

04:44because of the bed availability, they're not then eligible to come to the LTCH. So,

04:49we think they should be expanded. Thank you, Mr. DenGilley. You're back, Mr. Chairman.

Fitzpatrick Questions Witness About The ‘Increasing Staff Shortages’ In The Healthcare Industry

Category

Transcript

Recommended