CMS has expanded its Nursing Home Staffing Campaign from its original $75 million allocation to $200 million — a decision announced by CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and funded through a combination of federal appropriations and state civil monetary penalties collected from nursing homes cited for care lapses. Applications closed March 27, 2026. Award announcements are expected June 15, 2026, with programs eligible to start July 1.
What the Money Pays For
The campaign is not a grant to nursing homes. It flows through intermediary organizations — nursing schools, nonprofit workforce development organizations, and state agencies — who receive funds and then distribute them directly to nurses who commit to long-term care employment. The structure was deliberately designed to prevent nursing homes from capturing grant dollars without actually recruiting nurses.
Individual nurses can receive:
- Up to $40,000 in tuition reimbursement — for RNs and LPNs who commit to a 3-year employment agreement at a qualifying nursing home
- $10,000 stipend — for RNs and LPNs who don't need tuition support but are willing to commit to a 3-year qualifying employment period
- Program components can also include clinical training, simulation lab access, and mentorship infrastructure for new LTC nurses
Who Can Apply — and Who Can't
This is not a program where individual nurses apply directly to CMS. Eligible applicants are intermediary organizations: nursing education programs, nonprofit healthcare workforce organizations, and certain state agencies. Nursing homes, nursing home chains, and nursing home associations are explicitly ineligible to be grant distributors — a deliberate guardrail to prevent facilities from using grant money for operational costs rather than nurse education and recruitment.
Every state participated in the application process, according to CMS — Administrator Oz stated that all 50 governors engaged with the agency to co-fund the program using state-collected civil monetary penalties. CMPs are financial penalties collected when nursing homes are cited for care violations by state surveyors. The mechanism allows states to direct those funds back into LTC workforce development rather than into the general fund.
For nurses, the practical path is: once award organizations are announced June 15, contact those organizations in your state or region and apply through their programs for the tuition reimbursement or stipend component. Programs will vary by state — some may target rural areas specifically, others may focus on particular nursing specialties or new graduate recruitment.
The Context: LTC Staffing After the CMS Minimum Rule Repeal
This $200M investment is happening against an unusual policy backdrop. In February 2026, CMS finalized the repeal of its 2024 minimum nursing home staffing rule — eliminating the 3.48 hours per resident per day requirement and the 24/7 RN mandate that had been set to take effect on a phased timeline. The nursing home industry celebrated the repeal; nursing advocacy organizations criticized it.
The $200M campaign can be read as a replacement strategy: rather than mandating minimum hours through regulation, the Trump-era CMS under Oz is attempting to drive staffing improvements through financial incentives for nurse recruitment. Whether a voluntary incentive program achieves the same workforce improvements as a regulatory floor is an open empirical question — but the $200M figure represents a meaningful federal commitment to the LTC nursing shortage regardless of the policy framing.
As a unit manager at a 142-bed SNF, the persistent LTC staffing shortage is not abstract. Tuition reimbursement of $40K would move the needle for new graduates deciding between hospital and long-term care. The program won't solve the wage gap — LTC nurses typically earn 15–20% less than hospital nurses — but it meaningfully reduces the student loan burden for nurses willing to commit to LTC careers.
What Happens After June 15
Award organizations go public June 15. Programs are expected to begin enrolling nurses July 1, 2026. If you're an RN or LPN interested in a 3-year LTC commitment — whether because you're entering LTC directly from nursing school or transitioning from hospital nursing — the fastest path is to monitor CMS's Nursing Home Staffing Campaign page and your state health department's workforce announcements for program details after the June 15 award date.
CMS has also been expanding a separate $80M long-term care nurse education grants program, reignited in early 2026, which targets institutional capacity at community colleges and nursing programs for LPN-to-RN bridges and direct-entry LTC nursing tracks. Both programs reflect a shift toward workforce pipeline investment as the primary federal LTC staffing strategy in the absence of a mandatory minimum rule.