As visitation begins across Ohio assisted living centers had an opportunity to testify before the House Aging and Long Term Care committee.

They all emphasized they need help. Katherine Brod CEO of Leading Age said, "Long term care settings like nursing hones and assisted living were asking for prioritization of PPE, and testing. We were desperately in need of both." She also outlined some strategies of working together with nursing homes in the region to help and using independent labs with more capacity to conduct tests and better turn around times.

The Covid-19 virus has hit long term care facilities in Mahoning County hard. Seventy five percent of the deaths in the county are in long term care facilities. In Trumbull county there are 50 total cases, yet in one Mahoning facility there are 103 cases.

Nursing homes point out the majority of focus was primarily on hospitals. Mike Ray CEO of Green Hills Community emphasized, "One of the pressures early on was to take COVID positive discharges without proper testing or adequate supplies of PPE. This placed members organizations in a very challenging position."

And Ohio's 756 assisted living facilities which take care of people with chronic health conditions or impaired cognition, point out they can't bill medicare or medicaid for COVID-19 testing, like nursing homes can to get reimbursed. Plus they were left out of the federal funding formula
and they're not eligible for 50 thousand dollars per nursing home nor 2,500 dollars per patient in a government stimulus bill.

Jean Thompson, Executive Director of Ohio Assisted Living, said, "We need financial support. We would like a targeted PPE like nursing homes receive and we would very much like assistance with testing."

The Chairman of the Ohio House of Representatives of the Committee on Aging, Timothy Ginter, explained that the committee will use this information to help provide recommendations for a better path forward for taking care of Ohio's most vulnerable residents.