Comment period extended: CMS Seeks Feedback on Federal Nursing Home Regulations

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has extended the comment period for their Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on federal nursing home regulations. The proposed rule would revise the requirements that Long-Term Care facilities must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. ACL encourages its stakeholders and the public to review the proposed rule and submit comments to CMS.

Some of the proposed changes include, but are not limited to:

Making sure that nursing home staff is properly trained on caring for residents with dementia and in preventing elder abuse.
Ensuring that staff members have the right skill sets and competencies to provide person-centered care to residents. The care plan developed will take the resident’s goals of care and preferences into consideration.
Improving care planning, including discharge planning for all residents with involvement of the facility’s interdisciplinary team and consideration of the caregiver’s capacity, giving residents information they need for follow-up, and ensuring that instructions are transmitted to any receiving facilities or services.
Requiring nursing homes to provide greater food choice for residents while also giving flexibility for nursing homes.
Updating the nursing home’s infection prevention and control program, including requiring an infection prevention and control officer, and an antibiotic stewardship program that includes antibiotic use protocols and a system to monitor antibiotic use.

The proposed rule was initially issued in July 2015, with comments due by September 14th, but the comment period has been extended by thirty days until October 14th at 5 PM ET. Comments should be submitted electronically through regulations.gov.

Click here to read the Federal Register Notice proposal and make comments. Also, you can learn more about the proposed rule in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s press release.