healthcare worker delivering shot to older woman

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Calling it “unacceptable” that older adults “continue to be left behind for critically needed” COVID-19 support, Argentum on Monday called on the Biden administration to prioritize senior living communities for testing, vaccines and treatments.

In a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Argentum President and CEO James Balda implored the administration to directly supply COVID-19 tests to senior living communities, help administer COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, and target more federal financial relief to the industry.

“Unfortunately, time and again, America’s seniors have been left behind for COVID-19 support,” Balda wrote. “It took six months into the pandemic for their caregivers to even have access to federal relief, and still that relief is substantially less than other providers who aren’t serving on the frontlines have received.”

Testing supplies, he said, have been “inadequate and unavailable,” and he called on the federal government to resume its support for COVID-19 vaccine and booster administration. 

Testing, vaccines and boosters are the “most critical tools” for mitigating the spread of the virus, Balda said, adding that the industry was able to achieve vaccination levels of 95.5% among residents and 87.6% among staff through the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care program in place from late 2020 to April 2021. That support is missing for booster shots, placing an “enormous burden” on providers to vaccinate older adults unable to travel to outside clinics, he said.

Argentum also identified testing as critical to better track and mitigate the spread of coronavirus within congregate care settings, as well as to support visitation. Although senior living communities initially received supplies of rapid tests, local public health return-to-work requirements for workers are “not sustainable” due to nationwide testing shortages, Balda said.

“Senior living operators critically need frontline workers to return to work as quickly as possible, as workers whose return is delayed only exacerbates the staffing shortages that have worsened over the course of the pandemic, as more than 380,000 caregivers have left the industry,” Balda wrote. “Unless providers can get the needed testing supplies, many of our most vulnerable will be at risk of not being able to receive the care they need simply due to the shortage of caregivers able to be tested.”

Balda also called on the administration to prioritize the remaining Provider Relief Funds for assisted living providers. He called the Phase 4 distributions “simply inadequate” to offset more than $30 billion in pandemic-related expenses providers have incurred due to personal protective equipment, testing, cleaning, staffing needs and “hero pay,” as well as record-low occupancy from which the industry still is recovering.

“Through Phase 3 of relief, assisted living providers have received less than half of one percent of the PRF, and Phase 4 relief only offsets 20% to 25% of most providers’ losses for the time periods where their losses were the greatest,” Balda wrote. “We are increasingly concerned that many providers will be unable to weather the ongoing challenges of the pandemic much longer if they don’t receive necessary support, potentially leaving them with no other option than to close their facilities, which unfortunately, many have already had to do.”