LINCOLN- A new rule announced by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which was intended to improve patient care in long-term nursing facilities, is being criticized by nursing home staff and administrators for its strict requirement that each nursing facility must have a registered nurse working 24 hours a day.

"It's absolutely fundamentally flawed," said Tim Groshan, who owns three Nebraska nursing facilities, "because that's not how long-term care facilities operate." Groshan added that the new rule would give Nebraska nursing homes far less flexibility in both accepting patients and adjusting staffing levels to fit patient needs.

Before the new rule, nursing homes were only required to have a registered nurse, who oversees the care offered in nursing facilities, on-site for eight hours a day. In Nebraska, Groshan said that many facilities are having trouble hiring and retaining RNs, adding that many facilities won't survive the change. "But we've been fighting a lack of RNs for a number of years," he said, "And now there's a policy that seems to think that's gone and that they're just aplenty and you can find them. That's not reality"

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