September proved to be a BIG month for long term care facility regulatory reform! The federal government proposed its first ever nursing home minimum staffing requirements. The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term Care has put together a handy webpage for making comments. The proposed regulations can certainly use some improvement so comments from residents and their advocates will be critical. Comments are due by November 6.

In addition, the California Department of Social Services released a major proposal for new dementia care regulations in assisted living facilities (also known as RCFEs). The updated regulations would assure that every facility is dementia-care competent and would end a very problematic regulatory division between facilities that care for residents with dementia and those that don’t. Comments are due October 24.

For both sets of regulations, CANHR is preparing comments and will send them out to residents and resident advocates to assist in fashioning their own comments. Be on the lookout for an alert soon!