Leading Age New York, an 80-member nursing home and care facility group, is suing New York state over a minimum staffing law and seeking an injunction to prevent the law's enforcement, ABC 13 affiliate WHAM reported Jan. 3.
The state law mandates facilities provide 3.5 hours of care per resident, per day in nursing homes or face penalties. Leading Age New York President and CEO Jim Clyne says he fears the penalties will force nursing homes to reduce their number of available beds.
"Members are doing everything they can, they're advertising, paying bonuses, paying sign-on bonuses, but the bottom line is if members can't recruit enough staff, because they don't want to get penalized, what they end up doing is closing down their beds. You know just like any other business would do: if you don't have enough workers at your restaurant you don't serve breakfast," Mr. Clyne told WHAM.
"We're asking the governor include a 20 percent Medicaid increase in her budget," Mr. Clyne continued. "The amount of money coming from the state is not going up despite increased costs, and that's the basic problem, you can't underfund the system and then create this mandate."
WHAM contacted the state's department of health regarding the pending lawsuit. A department spokesperson said the following:
"The nursing home minimum staffing standards and direct resident-care spending regulations were published in the NYS Register and went into effect Dec. 7. No enforcement actions have been taken to date but the Department will begin monitoring compliance as well as evaluating the broader impact on the industry. The Department does not comment on pending litigation."
On Jan. 3, the judge overseeing the case granted Leading Age New York's motion to amend and supplement the complaint, but did not rule on the motion for a preliminary injunction, according to an update from the group. The judge will hear oral arguments for a motion for preliminary injunction and the state's motion to dismiss at a later date.