NAELA Joins Letter Outlining Steps to Better Support Nursing Home Residents During COVID-19 Pandemic

NAELA, along with 45 national and state organizations, sent a letter to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma with recommendations that CMS should take to better protect and support nursing home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations were outlined as follows:

1. CMS should ensure that facility residents, their families, and the general public know whether and to what extent a facility’s residents and staff members have contracted COVID-19.
2. CMS should ensure that nursing facilities are competent to provide care for residents with COVID-19.
3. CMS should ensure that nursing facilities actively coordinate and facilitate telephone calls, video conferences, and other communications between residents and their family members and friends.
4. CMS should ensure that transfers of residents are made collaboratively with residents and their representatives, to the greatest extent possible.
5. CMS should guarantee a resident’s right to return to a nursing facility, and facilitate access to Medicaid home and community-based services.
6. CMS should protect access for Medicaid-eligible residents.