A bipartisan bill designed to help nursing homes improve their vetting and training of caregiving staff has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate. If passed, the legislation would:
- Provide senior living facilities with the necessary tools to hire experienced staff and continue to meet the high demand for workers without sacrificing quality.
- Amend what bill sponsors describe as “overly restrictive” regulations that keep some nursing homes from conducting training programs for in-house CNAs for two years after deficiencies such as poor working conditions or patient safety violations are discovered.
- Allow nursing homes that have been assessed a civil monetary penalty of more than $10,000 and prohibited from conducting CNA staff training programs for two to reinstate their training programs. They can do this if the facility has corrected a deficiency for which a civil monetary penalty was assessed, the deficiency didn’t result in immediate risk to patient/resident safety and isn’t the result of harm from abuse/neglect, and the facility hasn’t received a repeat deficiency related to direct patient/resident harm in the preceding two years.
