The Lutheran Home Association meets with Legislator to address the staffing shortage crisis.
BELLE PLAINE, MINN. (MARCH 31, 2023) – The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine, a ministry of The Lutheran Home Association (TLHA), recently met Rep. Brian Pfarr (R- Le Sueur, Minn.) to discuss the staffing shortage crisis in senior care. This crisis is affecting seniors and families across the state of Minnesota.
Rep. Pfarr led a discussion with several TLHA team members and leadership from across our campus. Leadership team members included Mark Hayes, President of TLHA, Rick Krant, Administrator at The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine, Cassandra Ullom, Executive Director at Kingsway Retirement Living, and Megan Lambrecht, Director of Disability Services at Hope Residence. Belle Plaine Mayor Michael Woletz and members of the city council attended the meeting.
The discussion focused on how to best facilitate wage increases for caregivers to attract new workers and reduce turnover.
The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine, a skilled nursing facility, provides transitional care, wellness and rehabilitative therapies, long-term care, memory care, respite care, and adult day programs. The Belle Plaine campus also includes Kingsway Retirement Living and Hope Residence.
Minnesota’s seniors were turned away from long-term care 11,000 times in just one month (Oct. 2022, most recent population survey in long-term care), a persistent problem caused by the lack of caregivers to provide safe care.
The shortage of professional caregivers has limited the ability of long-term care and assisted living providers around the state to care for residents including at The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine. State leaders set the reimbursement rates for care, so our ability to recruit and retain caregivers depends on the state’s programs. Current rates do not provide enough money for caregivers to make a living wage.
A few statistics show the challenges currently facing The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine and similar long-term care facilities:
- Today, the average wage for a direct senior care worker in Minnesota is just $17 per hour. Solving the caregiving crisis will require increasing starting wages to at least $25 an hour. But this can’t be done without the state’s help.
- More than 22,000 caregiver positions are vacant in senior living in Minnesota, a shortage that has not improved over the past year.
- The hourly wages of senior caregivers are directly determined by reimbursement rates. If rates are set too low, caregivers won’t receive the wages they need to stay in their jobs.
The legislative solutions include investing in senior care communities and their caregivers by raising rates for aging services, providing a direct rate increase for nursing homes, making categorical moves of select staff from price to cost, and investing in the state’s Medicaid waivers. With a budget surplus of more than $17 billion in the state of Minnesota, it would be ideal to see an investment in caregiver wages and for lawmakers to address the significance of our caregiver shortage.
“We are appreciative of the opportunity to meet with Rep. Pfarr,” said Mark Hayes, President of TLHA. “His interest in the staffing crisis facing The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine and other senior care communities will lead to more interest and will ideally be a catalyst for change.”
About The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine
Located in Belle Plaine, Minn., The Lutheran Home is part of a 22-acre continuum-of-care campus. As a ministry of The Lutheran Home Association, The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine provides for the spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional needs of those entrusted to its care. For more information, visit The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine’s website. For real-time updates, follow @TLHAword on Twitter, or “Like” TLHA Kingsway Retirement Living + The Lutheran Home on Facebook.
About The Lutheran Home Association
The Lutheran Home Association is a not-for-profit ministry dedicated to providing for the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of people in our care. We offer a wide variety of health care, housing, and spiritual outreach services with campuses in several states, as well as congregational programs serving seniors and individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities nationwide. Services and programs include senior living, skilled nursing care, memory care, disability services, rehabilitative therapies, chaplaincy, Bible classes, worship services, and property management services. Learn more at tlha.org, follow @TLHAword on Twitter, and “Like” us on Facebook.
###