Follow the Money

After announcing a new campaign to train nurses in 2023, CMS finally announced an encouraging update: the campaign’s budget has more than doubled from $75 million to $200 million. The effectiveness has not been evaluated.

If implemented appropriately, the $200 million that has been dedicated to this effort will likely save Americans more than it would cost them in nursing home monetary penalties and long-term legal expenses that becomes necessary when understaffed and undertrained facilities abuse their clients.

For context, CMS’s original objective was to develop a program under CMS that would better train and recruit nurses for the long-term care sector. Overtime, the CMS program has gathered funds from the federal government, all 50 individual states, and additional unidentified donors. No one knows where the money was spent. Golden ballroom?

Mehmet Oz admitted the long-term care sector remains dangerously understaffed, and the nurses, under-trained. If OZ’s new CMS program is quickly and effectively implemented, improvement may be possible for the fragmented, decapacitated long-term care sector.