Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Broad testing of nursing home staff is considered crucial in stopping COVID. But who will pay for it?

  • COVID-19
  • by Jenna Carlesso
  • July 30, 2020
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org

Francene Bailey is comforted by family members as she weeps at the burial service for her mother, Hazel Bailey. Francene, who works as a certified nurse’s aide at Kimberly Hall North in Windsor, tested positive for COVID-19 in March. Although she recovered, she’s convinced that she unwittingly infected her mother.

For months, Lurlette Newell avoided hugs from her grandchildren, a heartbreaking ordeal for a woman who loves to show affection. But Newell, a certified nursing assistant at the Westside Care Center in Manchester, knew nursing homes had been hit hard by COVID-19, and she was afraid of infecting her family.

“The only thing I could do was wave to them,” she said recently. “It was so painful.”

That changed during the second week of July, when Newell’s employer began the widespread testing of its staff. Newell received her first coronavirus test, which came back negative. She put her arms around her three-year-old grandson and six-year-old granddaughter that week.

“I was so glad,” she said, “because it was heart wrenching.”

Staff testing is really the linchpin to continuing to keep this at bay. Hopefully that’s not impacted by financial decisions.” — David Skoczulek, VP of business development, iCare Health Network

The broad testing of nursing home workers and residents is considered a key strategy in fighting the continued spread of COVID-19, which has ravaged those facilities in Connecticut and elsewhere. Deaths among nursing home residents account for 65% of the state’s overall coronavirus fatalities. At least 3,400 staffers have been infected, and more than a dozen have died.

Since May, the state has funded the widespread testing of nursing home employees, setting aside about $30 million for the endeavor. But its contributions will end on Aug. 31.

Who will pay for the testing beyond that – and whether it will continue – is up in the air.

Deidre Gifford, the acting public health commissioner, said the state wants nursing homes to absorb the expense beginning Sept. 1. An executive order signed by Gov. Ned Lamont requires the facilities to test staff on a weekly basis. If a nursing home has been free of COVID-19 for 14 consecutive days, the testing can stop.

“It’s something that, as a cost of doing business, the facilities will need to start taking into account,” Gifford said in an interview. “We don’t have plans in place now to continue it. The nursing home industry in the majority of the rest of the country is paying for these costs.”

But Connecticut nursing home leaders said the facilities, weakened by revenue loss, can’t afford to pick up the tab. During the pandemic, short-term residents who normally are housed two persons to one room have been kept separate as a precaution. The change has cut that source of revenue at least in half. And industry officials say the drop is even greater, since many patients are postponing knee, hip, and other surgeries that require rehabilitation.

Nursing home officials have asked the state to direct more than $300 million in additional support to Connecticut’s 213 facilities.

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org

Olga Clark of Hartford (right) gets instructions from a Hartford HealthCare worker before being tested for COVID-19 at a pop-up testing site.

“Nursing homes understand the state’s strong desire to want to shift the unsustainable and extraordinary cost of testing to the providers, but the timing of that will cause enormous hardship and financial unsustainability,” said Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, which represents 145 homes. “We are still in a pandemic, and our nursing homes have suffered significant revenue losses and increased costs.”

Workers say the uncertainty around the future of testing has left them feeling anxious. Knowing who is sick and who isn’t helps many employees feel safer reporting for their shifts.

At the Westside Care Center, one staff member’s results came back positive during the first round of testing. The worker – a nurse – immediately began isolating. That was a relief to her colleagues, including Newell.

“It makes me feel much more protected that we have been tested,” she said. “And our residents – and my family and friends – are also protected.”

‘We have to find the funding’

By July 15, Gifford said, 43,492 tests had been performed on nursing home staff. Of those, 65 came back positive.

Connecticut has 31,538 workers in those facilities. It was unclear if all employees had received a test by mid-July, but some had been tested more than once. Gifford said the majority of homes had completed at least one round of staff testing.

“We are significantly lower on test positivity in our nursing home staff than we are in the rest of the population that’s being tested in Connecticut,” she told lawmakers during a public hearing last week. “That’s terrific news.”

The positivity rate for the state’s general population hovered between .5% and 1.5%, Gifford said, compared to .15% among nursing home staff.

But while the number of cases has dwindled in recent months, nursing home operators say testing is critical to detecting carriers who show no symptoms.

“Over the last couple months, as residents have been cohorted either by being negative or being recovered and we’ve had at least a somewhat reliable source of personal protective equipment, staff testing is really the linchpin to continuing to keep this at bay,” said David Skoczulek, vice president of business development for the iCare Health Network, which owns 11 nursing homes in and around Hartford. “Hopefully that’s not impacted by financial decisions.”

Yehyun Kim :: CT Mirror

Workers with SEIU 1199 New England rallied outside the state Capitol this month, asking for more protective equipment for frontline workers, especially those in nursing homes.

The average cost of a test is $117. Nursing homes are paired with a “care partner” – a local hospital or other facility that provides the testing. The results are reported to the homes and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In recent weeks, the Lamont administration has allowed some nursing homes to pause widespread testing of staff. When the governor issued his executive order in June, he mandated the weekly testing of employees in those facilities and in assisted living centers. But soon after, he amended that order to allow nursing homes to stop testing if they’ve been coronavirus free for 14 days. Weekly testing resumes if someone is symptomatic or if a case is recorded among the residents.

The Lamont administration said the change was in line with shifting guidance from the CDC, but the switch has drawn opposition from local legal aid groups. With staff coming and going, they have argued, weekly testing is essential to protecting residents.

And with the state funding scheduled to end in August, many more homes could halt employee testing.

“We have to find the funding to get adequate testing,” said Pedro Zayas, a spokesman for New England Health Care Employees, District 1199 SEIU, which represents about 6,000 nursing home staff members. “Trust me, the workers do not enjoy being tested. It’s not a fun experience. But we’re trying to protect them and the residents from more damage.”

‘When will we be tested again?’

State officials are waiting to see what additional aid they receive from the federal government. The $29.4 million they estimate spending on staff testing through Aug. 31 came from an earlier round of federal funding.

Aside from the money for testing, the state also granted nursing homes a 10% Medicaid rate increase in March at the start of the pandemic. Medicaid covers roughly 70% of all nursing home care provided in Connecticut.

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org

Lisandra Marshall-McIntosh, food service director at Kimberly Hall North, waves to supporters during a drive-through tribute.

In April, the administration bumped that increase to 15%. And in May and June, Lamont used a portion of Connecticut’s federal Coronavirus Relief Fund allocation to give the homes an effective 20% Medicaid increase each month.

Before the fiscal year ended, the industry had received $52 million from these increases. The administration also set aside more than $70 million in federal dollars for hardship rate increases that homes can apply for – on a facility-by-facility basis – to handle unanticipated costs including overtime, protective gear and equipment replacement.

Despite that, industry leaders are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain care levels, saying they’ve faced “dramatic revenue losses.” Some homes have begun laying off staff. Officials with SEIU 1199 New England said they were informed of at least 300 nursing home staff layoffs within their union, mostly certified nursing assistants.

Gifford said the state expects the facilities to continue staff testing beyond Aug. 31, tapping every resource available.

“Not all facilities have yet chosen to take advantage of the coronavirus relief grants,” she said. “They also have an option to ask for hardship relief. They can appeal to the Secretary of [the state’s Office of Policy and Management] and in partnership with Department of Social Services, they can ask for additional funding. So there are many avenues available for the industry.”

Long before staff testing was performed widely in nursing homes, employees wanted to be tested. Many regard it as a way of not only caring for themselves and their residents, but also shielding their families. One worker believes she passed the virus to her mother, who died. Another said she infected her late husband.

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org

Health care workers place a vial containing a nasal swab into a bag to send for COVID-19 testing at Hartford HealthCare’s mobile testing site in Hartford’s North End.

“Our members will always want to be tested on a regular basis,” said Jesse Martin, a vice president of SEIU 1199 New England. “They know the ultimate price that COVID has caused among the residents and staff. I can count – from my own interactions with the membership – over 30 family members who have died because their loved one who was a nursing home worker contracted COVID at work and brought it home.”

The staff at Newell’s Manchester nursing home received a second round of testing a week after the first. That time, no results came back positive.

“It feels strange being testing, but then I know I’m protected, and my co-workers, my residents and my family members are protected,” Newell said. “I’m worried the testing will end in August. Who is going to do the follow up? When will we be tested again? Those things are very concerning to us.”

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Carlesso is CT Mirror’s Health Reporter, focusing on health access, affordability, quality, equity and disparities, social determinants of health, health system planning, infrastructure, processes, information systems, and other health policy. Before joining CT Mirror Jenna was a reporter at The Hartford Courant for 10 years, where she consistently won statewide and regional awards. Jenna has a Master of Science degree in Interactive Media from Quinnipiac University and a Bachelor or Arts degree in Journalism from Grand Valley State University.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
1,500 Hartford school staff to be vaccinated this week at pop-up clinic
by Adria Watson

Vaccinations are taking place Thursday and Friday. A second round will be scheduled in coming days.

With billions in federal relief on the way to CT, legislators assert their role in deciding how to spend it
by Keith M. Phaneuf and Mark Pazniokas

With an unusual bill, state legislators are reminding Gov. Ned Lamont they have significant role in disbursing federal coronavirus relief.

How does the public option bill differ from Gov. Ned Lamont’s health care plan? Here’s a look at the two proposals.
by Jenna Carlesso

With the rising cost of care a central issue this legislative session, lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration have each moved ahead with their own plans aimed at driving down prices.

Will getting teachers vaccinated get students back in school full time? It might not be that easy
by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Kasturi Pananjady and Adria Watson

Districts will have to convince parents and students that in-person learning is safe and that students won't bring COVID-19 home.

Lamont urges patience as residents flood online, phone systems in search of COVID vaccine appointments
by Jenna Carlesso, Mark Pazniokas and Dave Altimari

Residents reported long wait times on the phone, difficulty with online systems and appointments as far out as late April.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion The Board of Regents’ changes must not shortchange its students or faculty
by Carrie Andreoletti, PhD

As a university professor and a lifespan developmental psychologist, I tend to approach my work from a developmental perspective. This means I aim to foster a lifelong love of learning and to help others find a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as confidence in their ability to reach their goals. My approach to higher education is shaped by my desire to provide the best possible education for my students. This is why the recent Board of Regents’ proposed changes at the four state universities have me worried.

Opinion How to close schooling opportunity gaps created by the pandemic
by Carol Gale

We ask school district leaders to trust your public servants whose daily work life involves assessing student needs and planning or modifying instruction to meet those needs. Listen to their voices, as we have, and allocate precious resources on interventions that will offer increased opportunities for Hartford students to succeed.

Opinion A new guide for schools: How to work with families this spring
by Michael Arrington and Erika Haynes

With months of remote and hybrid learning to go, families and educators continue to adapt and innovate to meet the moment. Since August, we’ve spoken with hundreds of parents, caregivers, family support groups, educators, and students across Connecticut and the country about things things that have worked --strategies, big and small, that have made this time more manageable and helped children learn and stay connected with peers.

Opinion Housing is a human right
by Tenaya Taylor

Nonprofit Accountability Group is a queer- and trans-led group based in Hartford that is dedicated to creating racial equity by directing resources to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and disabled children and families. NAG was founded in 2020 as an organization with a transformative approach to implementing nonprofit accountability by creating relationships within the community, nonprofits, and their funders.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO