Nursing home industry unlikely to see much help from Springfield in tough budget year [Video]

SPRINGFIELD (Capitol News Illinois) – It’s been four years since some of the worst scenes of COVID-19 played out in locked-down nursing homes during the early months of the pandemic.

But while most of the world has moved on, the nursing home industry is still reeling from COVID, which exacerbated pre-existing challenges in long-term care – difficulties hiring and retaining staff and a population more reliant on government-funded care chief among them.

Read more: ‘Already in crisis:’ Report says Medicaid funding shortfalls causing nursing homes to close | Report: Nursing homes in crisis with staff shortages

Employment in skilled nursing facilities nationwide as of February was down 8.3 percent compared with February of 2020, the month before the pandemic hit. Although the current staffing levels have somewhat recovered from their lowest point in early spring 2022 – when staffing was down 15.5 percent from pre-pandemic levels – other areas within health care have recovered much faster, according to a Kaiser Family …