Building a pipeline of professional caregivers and then retaining them in long-term care are some of the goals of an executive order signed Tuesday by President Biden. Provider groups responded by calling for more “meaningful” aid.

The order in part calls for expanding an as-yet undisclosed nursing home staffing mandate and tying Medicare payments to nursing home staff retention.

“Like I called for in my State of the Union address, we’re going to improve long-term care by strengthening staffing standards at nursing homes,” the president said in a Rose Garden speech.

Holly Harmon, senior vice president of quality, regulatory and clinical services at the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living, said that the groups appreciate the administration’s desire to incentivize nursing home providers to improve on key quality metrics, such as staff turnover.

“At the same time, we need policymakers to offer programs and solutions that will help us attract and retain caregivers to ensure residents are well-supported,” Harmon said. “Turnover metrics are important, but we need significant, meaningful aid to help address the root causes of turnover and offer more competitive, good-paying jobs.”

LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan, who attended the president’s speech, said in a statement that the announcement indicates that the federal government has been listening to long-term care industry advocates, but that the order is “still getting it wrong on nursing homes,” “bolsters the home care workforce while punishing nursing home providers for shortages,” and “doesn’t provide support for other care settings like adult day programs, assisted living, hospice and more, on which millions of older adults and families rely.”

The president called the executive order the “most comprehensive set of actions any administration has taken to date” to increase access to long-term care, bolster job protections for long-term care workers and help family caregivers. It includes more than 50 directives to almost every cabinet-level agency.

“Now that the administration has directed nearly every cabinet-level agency to act, LeadingAge reiterates our call to create a White House Office on Aging Policy. It’s time for coordinated federal leadership with focused expertise to address the unique needs of older Americans,” Sloan said.

Plans also call for changes to home care, including “leveraging Medicaid funding to ensure there are enough home care workers to provide care to seniors and people with disabilities enrolled in Medicaid,” the White House said in a fact sheet issued in conjunction with the president’s executive order. The administration noted, also, that the president’s budget also includes $150 billion over the next decade to improve and expand Medicaid home care services.

Biden added that he has instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to determine how home care workers “can get the pay they deserve with the money already allocated.”

“Pay for care workers is too low, and that’s why so many are leaving the whole endeavor,” he said. To ensure a pipeline of caregivers, the president added, the government is expanding its relationships with community colleges, registered apprenticeship programs and AmeriCorps.

As for family caregivers, Biden said that more than one in every five adults is a family caregiver and called family caregiving a “labor of love.”

“Family members are too often forced to leave their own good jobs behind to stay home to be with Mom and Dad,” he said. “Long-term care costs for the elderly or people with disabilities are up 40% percent over the past decade. Some of you have had to spend your own retirement savings to care for your parents.”

The executive order, Biden said, directs HHS to consider testing a new dementia care model that will include support for respite care and make it easier for family caregivers to access Medicare beneficiary information and provide more support to family caregivers during the hospital discharge planning process.