Across the country, long-term care facilities are facing a staffing shortage that in some cases has impacted access to care and slowed or halted the admissions process for assisted-care communities. In some places, the staffing shortage is being referred to as a “crisis,” while others are being described as “scrambling” to manage the demand for care.
The ongoing staffing shortage persists well after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when nursing homes and its residents experienced a devastating impact from the deadly viral outbreak, losing thousands of residents to the illness and hundreds of thousands of staff members due to attrition.
The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living have labeled the staffing shortages as “historic,” noting that long-term care facilities accounted for the greatest volume of staff losses across the healthcare industry. Even as federal officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) consider a proposal that would set a new standard for minimum staffing at long-term care facilities, that proposal — according to reports — doesn’t include provisions for funding increased staff.
As part of the proposal, CMS estimated that new staffing standards would require about 75% of the country’s nursing homes to add staff.
It is this quandary that puts long-term care facilities at odds with the ability to provide consistent, quality care, keep the cost of care at an accessible level and maintain fiscal balance. At UnitedRx, our partnerships with long-term care facilities are designed to create valuable efficiencies, easing at least some of the burdens associated with the ongoing staffing shortages across the country.
Put simply, as a long-term care specialty pharmacy, our expertise and services extend beyond filling prescriptions. Here’s how our partnerships can help.
- Our partners benefit from our automated dispensing units of more than 300 medications for first done/STAT use — saving time and money.
- Our consultant pharmacists help our partner facilities and staff with medication cart or room reviews, chart reviews to identify duplicative therapy, and the development of clinical protocols, among other issues. This type of support alleviates the burden on facilities and their teams, fostering smoother visits from state inspectors.
- Our centralized billing, prior authorization, and medical records departments also help alleviate administrative burdens carried by facilities and their staff.
At UnitedRx, we pride ourselves on being flexible, adaptable and innovative, which means we’re willing to work with our long-term care partners to develop the best, efficiency-focused solutions for their unique contracting, pricing, process and delivery challenges. And once we discover and implement those efficiencies, it leaves more time for and resources available for patient care — particularly at a time of “crisis” level staffing shortages.
To gain clarity on the specific benefits available for your facility, reach out to our team. We would be happy to discover efficiencies together.
At UnitedRx, we deliver a hometown pharmacy experience to more than 400 clients across the country. Contact us to learn more about how our approach to treatment can meet the pharmacy needs of your long-term care facility.