Legislative Session number- 82

Bill Name: SF0411

"Community Care Options for Older Adults Act", providing a comprehensive system
for the care of seniors ARTICLE 1 COMMUNITY ACCESS AND SUPPORTS FOR
SENIORSModifying the medical assistance (MA) eligibility requirement relating to
income for aged, blind or disabled persons not receiving supplemental security
income (SSI) program payments; increasing the general assistance (GA) standard
of assistance by the maximum allotment authorized by the federal food stamp
program for shelter needy applicants for or recipients of benefits from the
alternative care or elderly waiver programs, defining shelter needy; creating
the community services development grants program under the administration of
the commissioner of human services for the establishment of new older adult
services as alternatives to nursing facility care, specifying eligibility, a
match requirement and a maximum grant amount; requiring the commissioner to
establish a transition planning grant program to assist eligible nursing homes
in developing strategic plans to meet the older adult service needs of the
community, specifying certain strategic plan content requirements, providing for
allocation of the grants and requiring the commissioner to evaluate the
effectiveness of the program; requiring the commissioner to establish a medical
assistance pilot project on senior citizens to study the impact on public
expenditures of converting the delivery of housing, supportive services and
health care for seniors into a flexible voucher program and to provide an
alternative method of purchasing services based on consumer choice, requiring
the commissioner to apply for necessary federal waivers to implement the project
and to collaborate with participating communities in preparing and issuing
annual reports to the legislature on the project, project sunset provision;
requiring and providing for the board on aging to develop a senior information
source to provide free telephone and Internet information and assistance service
for seniors and families of seniors, specifying certain information source,
proposal, fiscal, local match and evaluation requirements; requiring the
commissioner of health in consultation with the commissioner of human services
to by a certain date implement mechanisms to monitor and analyze the
distribution of older adult services in the different geographic areas of the
state, specifying certain study requirements and requiring annual reports to the
legislature; requiring the commissioners to identify and designate specific
geographic areas as critical access service sites, defining critical access
service site and specifying certain duties of the commissioners ARTICLE 2
CAREGIVER SUPPORTGranting eligibility for state paid hospital, medical and
dental benefits to employees of licensed nursing facilities; excluding certain
wage increases mandated by the legislature and received by long term care
workers from inclusion in annual income for child care assistance eligibility
determination purposes; expanding background studies requirements to individuals
employed by temporary employment agencies providing services in health care
facilities under contract with registered temporary employment agencies and
controlling persons of temporary agencies, requiring employment agencies subject
to registration requirements to maintain records verifying compliance with the
background study requirements; extending the deadline for commissioner of health
application for a federal waiver to implement the program of employing resident
attendants to assist with eating and drinking activities in nursing homes and
expanding the definition of resident attendant to individuals assisting with
transporting activities; requiring and providing for the registration of
temporary employment agencies serving the health care industry with the
commissioner of health, requiring the commissioner to establish forms and
procedures for annual registration and to set a registration fee and granting
the commissioner certain enforcement authority; specifying certain background
study requirements and certain information to be provided by the agencies to the
commissioner; requiring and providing for written contracts between the agencies
and the facilities to be served, specifying certain contract content and
maintenance requirements; specifying certain referral authority of the
commissioner upon receipt of information indicating the failure of an agency to
comply with legal requirements; requiring the department of human services to
establish maximum payment rates for services provided by the agencies; requiring
the commissioner of health to coordinate loan forgiveness, grant, tuition waiver
and training programs available to licensed and unlicensed health care workers
pledging to work in long term health care settings, to serve as a clearinghouse
on available programs and to establish a health care worker tuition payback
program ARTICLE 3 PAYMENT AND QUALITY SYSTEM REFORMEstablishing a quality and
payment review commission to review long term care payment policies and submit
financial and quality assurance recommendations and reports to the legislature,
specifying membership requirements and powers and duties, requiring
recommendations to the legislature by a certain date on a new operating payment
system for nursing facilities receiving medical assistance (MA) payments,
specifying certain system component requirements; requiring and providing for
commissioner of human services operating payment rate adjustments for nursing
facilities participating in the contractual alternative payment demonstration
project under medical assistance, specifying certain calculation requirements,
requiring use of part of the increase for employee compensation; providing for
additional increases for low rate facilities; authorizing the commissioner to
contract with nursing facilities eligible to receive medical assistance payments
to provide services to ventilator dependents persons according to certain
specified criteria, authorizing negotiation of an operating cost payment rate
adjustment for the facilities; specifying certain replacement cost new per bed
limits for licensed beds, requiring annual adjustments; requiring the
commissioner to increase the rental factor, prescribing an occupancy factor and
providing for certain allowances, debts and interest expenses and requiring the
commissioner to establish alternate payment rates for certain nursing
facilities; establishing the long term care enhancement fund for deposit of
unspent and unencumbered state general fund appropriations for long term care;
requiring state agencies proposing new regulations or new interpretations of
existing regulations relating to housing and service delivery for older adults
to submit copies of proposed changes to the quality and payment review
commission for a regulatory financial impact statement and approval ARTICLE 4
INFRASTRUCTURE CONVERSIONIncreasing the dollar limit for construction projects
under the nursing home bed moratorium and expanding the definition of project
construction costs to new technology implemented as part of the project,
defining technology; eliminating the provision prohibiting the carryforward of
nursing home bed moratorium exception expenditures into the following biennium;
expanding the criteria for review of moratorium exception proposals to the
extent of the increase in the number of private or single room beds; eliminating
the provision exempting nursing facilities under the medical assistance (MA)
contractual alternative payment demonstration project from moratorium
requirements and providing for reimbursement for construction projects for
alternative payment system nursing facilities; requiring the commissioner of
human services to apply for necessary waivers of federal medicaid regulations or
change in state plan to allow the state to cover the payment for private or
single rooms for medical assistance recipients and requiring the commissioner to
use a certain definition of capacity days to adjust nursing facility property
rates; establishing the nursing home facility conversion program and account to
be administered by the commissioner of the housing finance agency (HFA) for the
conversion of nursing home facilities to assisted living facilities or other
affordable housing for seniors, specifying facility eligibility requirements and
allocation criteria, prohibiting the approval of funds for projects increasing
medical assistance costs ARTICLE 5 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT Requiring and providing
for the commissioner of health to implement alternative procedures for the
nursing home survey process, specifying certain survey interval requirements and
requiring the commissioner to develop a process for identifying the survey
cycles for skilled nursing facilities based on the compliance history of the
facility, requiring public notice of the classification process and
identification of the selected survey cycles for each facility, specifying
certain monitoring requirements, requiring the commissioner to establish a
process for surveying and monitoring certain facilities, prohibiting survey
agency funding reductions upon implementation of the alternative survey process
and requiring the commissioner to expand survey agency ability to conduct
training and educational efforts for skilled nursing facilities and the public
and to develop an alternative survey process evaluation procedure; requiring the
commissioner to establish a long term care grant program for the demonstration
of best practices and innovations for long term care service delivery and
housing, specifying eligibility requirements and providing for the awarding of
grants ARTICLE 6 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITYExpanding the definition of eligible
person under the public employees group long term care insurance program;
requiring the commissioners of human services and commerce to establish the
Minnesota partnership for long term care program to provide for the financing of
long term care through a combination of private insurance and medical assistance
(MA), specifying eligibility requirements and providing for medical assistance
eligibility determination by the commissioner of human services; requiring the
commissioner to seek appropriate amendments to the medical assistance state plan
and necessary federal waivers to implement the program and specifying certain
partnership policy requirements; increasing the maximum income tax credit for
long term care insurance premiumsARTICLE 7 MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONSExtending the
expiration date of a certain provision requiring frequent checking of
incontinent nursing facility residents; repealing certain existing nursing
facility medical assistance (MA) reimbursement provisions ARTICLE 8
APPROPRIATIONSAppropriating money to the commissioner of human services for
community services development and transition grants, for administration of the
medical assistance (MA) pilot project, for ventilator dependent persons rate
negotiations, for the nursing home moratorium exception process and for the long
term care partnership program federal waiver, to the board on aging for
development and operation of the senior information source, to the commissioner
of health for identification of critical access service sites, for coordination
of tuition assistance programs, for implementation of the loan forgiveness
program and the alternative survey schedule, for provider education and for
innovations in quality demonstration grants, to the quality and payment review
commission for the time study, to the housing finance agency (HFA) for
administration of the nursing home conversion program and to the commissioner of
employee relations (DOER) for promoting the expansion of the state long term
care insurance program (ra)