December 2, 2025 Washington, DC — Statement from Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO, LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit, mission-driven  providers of aging services, including nursing homes, on the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) interim final rule repealing provisions of the Minimum Staffing Standards for Long-Term Care (LTC) Facilities and Medicaid Institutional Payment Transparency Reporting Final Rule, finalized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in April 2024:

“Today’s interim final rule, which repeals the one-size-fits-all staffing standards finalized in April 2024, is an important milestone in ongoing efforts to ensure quality care in nursing homes–a goal that LeadingAge and our mission-driven and nonprofit members steadfastly support.

The CMS staffing mandate repeal is a much-needed recognition of the very real barriers that our nursing home members navigate in recruiting and retaining staff.

But this is no time for rest.

Our members remain committed to achieving high quality care delivered by competent and qualified staff.

We will continue to engage with federal policy makers and advocate for meaningful investments in the long term care workforce and the advancement of smart policies to realize the necessary numbers of trained and qualified nurse aides, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and other caregivers who serve nursing home residents and older adults across the aging services continuum.

We urge Congress and the administration to invest in building and sustaining the long-term care workforce by funding recruitment, training, and retention initiatives, addressing reimbursement shortfalls, and creating pathways for new caregivers to enter the field, including through long-overdue immigration reform. Without bold solutions to strengthen the pipeline of qualified professionals, older adults and families will continue to face limited access to care. The time to act is now—because without staff, there is no care.”