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Nursing Home Transparency
- H.R. 3590 contains several nursing home transparency provisions. It will:
- Require nursing homes to disclose their owners, operators, suppliers, financers, and others with whom they do business so they can be held accountable for the care their residents receive;
- Require nursing homes to take steps internally to reduce criminal and civil violations;
- Establish a Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement Program to improve quality assurance standards;
- Require the government to implement a system to collect and report information about how well nursing homes are staffed, including accurate information about the hours of nursing care residents receive; staff turnover rates; and how much facilities spend on wages and benefits;
- Require cost reports that nursing homes will file with the government to show expenditures by category — nursing, therapy, capital assets, and administrative services;
- Require civil monetary penalties (fines) to be held in escrow pending appeals rather than allowing nursing homes to delay payment indefinitely while they file appeals.
- Implement a pilot program to improve federal government oversight of nursing home chains that have quality of care problems;
- Provide training to workers who care for residents with dementia and to prevent abuse.
