Up to one in six nursing home residents may be the victim of abuse or neglect every year. In late 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule revising the requirements that Long-Term Care Facilities must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. According to CMS’ chief medical officer Dr. Kate Goodrich, “these are the first comprehensive updates to long-term care requirements since 1991.” One section in particular discusses changes to prevent the abuse of residents of Long-Term Care Facilities.
Provisions related to abuse, neglect, and exploitation are now included in a separate section, which brings more attention and focus to these issues. To more accurately reflect the content, § 483.13 regarding abuse in Long-Term Care Facilities has been re-designated and revised to § 483.12. The title has been changed from “Resident Behavior and Facility Practices” to “Freedom from Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation.” The focus of this regulation is to ensure that residents are not subjected to abuse, neglect, misappropriation of property, and exploitation, and to establish requirements for the facility’s response to any allegations that has occurred. To prevent abuse of residents in Long-Term Care Facilities, we must recognize that abuse continues to occur. Last month, CNN issued a report from an exclusive analysis of state and federal data and interviews with experts, regulators and the families of victims, and found that abuse in nursing homes is far more prevalent than most people know. The report focused on caregiver-on-resident abuse. Caregivers in nursing homes are in a position of authority and trust, and too often when they violate that position they are not properly reprimanded due to nursing homes being slow to investigate or report allegations, police dismissal, and state regulators failing to flag patterns of repeated allegations against a single caregiver.
A key difference in the new rule expands the list of individuals whom a facility may not employ or otherwise engage. It prohibits facilities from employing individuals who “have been found guilty of abuse, neglect, exploitation, misappropriation of property, or mistreatment by a court of law; have had a finding entered into the State nurse aide registry concerning abuse, neglect, exploitation, mistreatment of residents or misappropriation of their property; or have a disciplinary action in effect against his or her professional license by a state licensure body as a result of a finding of abuse, neglect, exploitation, mistreatment of residents or misappropriation of resident property.” The new rule now also requires that facilities develop and implement written policies and procedures that prohibit and prevent abuse, neglect, exploitation of residents and misappropriation of resident property, and also requires that facilities establish policies and procedures to investigate any allegations of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or misappropriation of property. Furthermore, facilities must establish policies and procedures to ensure reporting crimes, and investigation into any allegations.
With much of the new rule now in effect, residents and families will hopefully see a significant decline in the rate of nursing home abuse, but much will depend on implementation and enforcement. Medicare will issue guidance this summer on exactly how nursing homes must comply.