California lawmakers say they’ll take no action this year on a bill that would require nursing home owners and operators to get state approval before they acquire, operate or manage a nursing home. But it could be heard in the future.
Assembly Bill 1502 would forbid the use of management agreements to circumvent state licensure requirements and would require owners and operators to get approval from the California Department of Public Health before acquiring, operating or managing a nursing home. The bill also would specify the requirements to apply for a license, including providing the department with the applicant’s Medicare and Medicaid cost reports for all nursing facilities owned or managed by the applicant for the past five years in California and other states. If the applicant is part of a chain, then it also would be required to provide a diagram indicating the relationship between the applicant and the persons or entities, as defined, that are part of the chain.
The state’s Assembly Health Committee declined to hear the bill, however, and instead turned the proposal into a two-year bill that won’t be heard before next January, according to a report Friday by Cal Matters.
The measure, authored by California lawmaker Al Muratsuchi of Los Angeles, was introduced partly due to a recent investigation into the licensing process for California’s nursing homes, which eldercare advocates say has been plagued by indecision, delays and misleading information. Advocates point to one example in particular: the California Department of Public Health has allowed the state’s largest nursing home owner, Shlomo Rechnitz, to operate facilities for years through a web of companies while their license applications languish in “pending” status, according to an analysis earlier this month by Cal Matters.
“People are dying as we wait,” Muratsuchi told the media outlet. “We cannot sit around with a broken state oversight system while our most vulnerable residents continue to live in these nursing homes.”
This article appeared in the McKnight’s Business Daily, a joint effort of McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
