AARP Eye Center
Virginia’s long-term care system ranks 37th in the country for safety and quality, according to a new AARP scorecard, which found the state’s nursing homes are beset by inadequate staffing levels and mediocre quality.
Addressing some of those deficiencies will be a top priority for AARP Virginia during this year’s state legislative session, which gets underway in January.
“For a whole host of reasons, Virginians living in nursing homes are not receiving the quality of care that they deserve,” says Jared Calfee, AARP Virginia’s state advocacy director. “As our population ages and more Virginians need long-term care, these problems are more likely to get worse than better.”
In 2024, AARP will focus on two possible ways state lawmakers can help improve Virginia’s long-term care facilities, he says.
- Workforce development incentives to help address the shortage of long-term care workers.
- Extra funding to fill vacancies in the state’s nursing home inspection division.
The Virginia Department of Health had 13 vacancies on its nursing home inspection staff as of Nov. 30, including seven positions that were not fully funded, according to Kimberly Beazley, director of the agency’s Office of Licensure and Certification. To improve recruitment and retention, Calfee says the state needs to make salaries more competitive for nursing home inspectors.
The vacancies are “obviously a huge problem,” he says, because it means health and safety laws may not be adequately enforced.
The latest AARP Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard, released in September, shows that Virginia ranked 43rd in the nation for nursing home staffing levels and 30th in the percentage of nursing home residents in facilities with five-star quality rankings.
Nursing aides needed
On the workforce front, Calfee says AARP is hoping Virginia can replicate a Minnesota initiative that provides free training for qualified students interested in becoming certified nursing assistants. In Minnesota, the state partnered with colleges and long-term care providers to train more than 1,000 new CNAs.
Minnesota used federal COVID-19 relief funding to cover the costs of tuition and other expenses for the students. Calfee notes that Virginia has leftover money from the federal American Rescue Plan.
Help for the helpers
AARP Virginia is also backing efforts to enact a state tax credit for certain family caregivers who incur out-of-pocket expenses.
State Del. Sam Rasoul (D-Roanoke) sponsored a bill in 2022 to give family caregivers a state income tax credit of up to $1,000 on eligible expenses, such as installing wheelchair ramps or buying medical equipment. Rasoul plans to introduce a similar measure in 2024 and hopes it will get more traction than the 2022 bill, which stalled amid other priorities. He plans to work with various stakeholders to determine eligibility factors, such as income limits.
“I am trying to support these caregivers who want to keep their loved ones at home,” Rasoul says.
Tamara Lytle, a freelance writer in the Washington area, covers everything from politics to parenting. She has writ- ten for the Bulletin for 15 years.
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