This bill changes the rules for when nursing homes are barred from running their own nurse aide training programs under Medicare and Medicaid. Under current law, a facility loses approval to operate these training programs if it faces certain penalties, including relatively low civil fines for quality-of-care violations. The bill raises the threshold so that only civil monetary penalties of at least $12,924 tied to a care-quality deficiency, or specific serious enforcement actions like being barred from receiving Medicare or Medicaid payments for new admissions, would trigger disqualification. It also removes an existing provision that automatically disqualified facilities for a set time period after certain violations, instead tying disqualification more specifically to the severity of penalties imposed. This change primarily affects skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities that train nurse aides, potentially allowing more facilities with minor infractions to continue offering these training and competency evaluation programs. The bill does not include new funding and would take effect based on standard implementation timelines once enacted, as it amends existing sections of the Social Security Act.
Take Action
Your position
Add a comment
to comment on this bill.
Annotate the text
Highlight any passage on the Summary or Full Text tab to attach a note. Annotations appear on the Annotations tab.