Daily nursing homes safety fines reinstated. The Biden administration has reversed Trump-era limits on penalties for unsafe nursing home care. In 2017, after intense lobbying by the nursing home industry, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted a "per-instance" approach to penalties for safety and other violations, restricting fines to a one-time amount of $22,320, regardless of the duration of the violation. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, about half of the 82% of nursing homes with violations from 2013 to 2017 had persistent problems and were cited across multiple years, mostly for infection control deficiencies. The danger of such deficiencies is evidenced by data showing that long-term care residents and staff have accounted for one-third of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, with more than 184,000 lives lost. Nursing homes with prior noncompliance now face fines for each day they fail to comply with safety standards, an approach experts believe will act as an incentive for nursing homes to have sufficient staff, resources, and infection control measures to protect the vulnerable residents they serve.