State Regulations for Nursing Homes
Nursing home care in the United States has experienced exponential growth over the years. There are many reasons for this. Advances in medical technology enable people to live longer. There is also the issue of the baby boomer generation. As baby boomers approach retirement ages, there is an increased demand for health care and medical services.
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Need for Government Regulation
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Many nursing homes in the United States do not have uniform standards in place to deal with their residents, who are elderly and disabled--many so frail that they cannot act on their own. The U.S Department of Health said in 2001 that problems with abuse were reported in 30 percent of the nursing homes in the United States. State and federal governments have stepped up their efforts to curtail abuse.
Nature of State Regulation of Nursing Homes
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The state regulation of nursing homes was partly the consequence of the rampant nursing home abuse, which received the attention of the public through news reports. For the most part, state laws for nursing homes were slow in coming, and they largely followed the same path taken by the federal government. Part of the reason stems from the fact that the federal government provides funding for Medicare and Medicaid programs while state governments are directly involved with implementation issues. So the federal government sets broad guidelines that must be followed by states and program recipients.
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Mandatory Inspections and Licensing
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State governments have imposed mandatory licensing and inspections of the nursing home facilities in their jurisdictions as a way to deal with some of the nursing home problems. The state laws for inspections and licensing made provisions for unannounced state inspections of nursing home facilities. State health care agents now monitor and conduct inspections to ensure that nursing homes are implementing state nursing home directives, in conjunction with those established by the federal government. Nursing homes that fail to live up to these directives face sanctions, which may include closures depending on the severity of the violations.
Criminal Background Checks for Nursing Home Workers
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In line with the new federal government initiative, the U.S. Department Of Health and Human Services announced that nursing home employees would be required to undergo a criminal background check and must meet other new health care quality standards to work for any federally mandated health care program. Since the imposition of that law, state authorities have also enacted similar laws requiring criminal background checks for all nursing home employees working in their states. This rule is an important step, in a continuous bid to improve the quality of workers who provide care to the patients.
OBRA 90
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The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 was put in place to safeguard the interests and safety of nursing home patients. Under this law, state health care authorities have imposed state standards to force compliance. This initiative sets broad guidelines for informing patients of their rights through information provision and transparency. Patients are also encouraged to participate in health care decisions affecting their lives if they are in a position to do so.
Admission, Transfer and Discharge Rights
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All states have anti-discrimination laws on nursing home admissions; many require nursing homes to maintain logs of nursing home admission denials along with waiting time of the list of applicants. State laws on discharge and transfer of residents were derived from a federal rule regarding patients' rights. This law established specific standards for discharge and transfer of residents. Those standards include the following: when a resident's condition has improved to the point that the resident no longer need those services or the facility cannot provide the needed care or when the resident becomes a danger to other residents.
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