Will Trump Reverse the Nursing Home Staffing Mandate? 3 Notes

Becker’s Hospital Review / By Elizabeth Gregerson
 
Nursing home officials said they are counting on the Trump administration to reverse an impending Biden-era staffing level mandate, KFF Health News reported Dec. 3.

About 40 states and nonprofits have sued HHS and CMS over a rule that, when implemented in 2026, would require long-term care facilities to have a registered nurse on site for 24 hours per day, seven days a week as opposed to the current requirement of eight hours per day, seven days a week.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said the final rule "poses an existential threat to the nursing home industry as many nursing homes that are already struggling will have no choice but to go out of business."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in August filed a similar lawsuit against the Biden administration over the mandate, a suit that was supported by the American Hospital Association in an amicus brief. 

"Imposing inflexible numerical thresholds on long-term-care facilities will lead to worse patient outcomes and less patient-care capacity across the entire healthcare system," the AHA brief said.

KFF Health News spoke to nursing home industry insiders about what the incoming Trump administration might mean for the staffing level rule. 

Here are three things to know from the report:

  1. "The Trump administration has proven itself really eager to reverse overreaching regulations. We think it's got a pretty good chance of being repealed, and hope so," Linda Couch, senior vice president for policy and advocacy at LeadingAge, one of the nonprofits suing over the mandate, toldKFF Health News.

  2. "Staffing is everything in terms of nursing-home quality. [If the rule is repealed] we would be losing that signal that nursing homes should try really hard to improve their staffing," R. Tamara Konetzka, PhD, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Chicago, told KFF Health News.

  3. "We're hoping the president-elect will come in and take a look at the science and data behind it and see this really is a modest reform. We'd be devastated to see it fall," Sam Brooks, director for public policy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, told KFF Health News.