The executive director of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities stood before a legislative committee in Frankfurt, KY, last month to petition what she explained as overly strict enforcement of nursing home regulations. She argued that Kentucky nursing homes were too often cited for not meeting regulations, which encouraged excessive litigation in a legal environment deemed as “toxic.”
Kentucky’s current nursing home regulations are designed to protect the state’s 23,000 residents in long-term care facilities. Regulation advocates point to the alarming number of reports of abuse and death that occurred in KY nursing homes over the past three years. According to an article in The Courier-Journal, some of Kentucky’s 289 nursing homes have been fined nearly $16 million for violations outlined in hundreds of pages of state inspection documents.
Some of the Kentucky legislative committee may have been swayed to the side of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities. However, it is the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who decide how severe a violation is. They also determine how much said violation will cost a nursing home in fines, not the Kentucky government.
To read more about the debate on nursing home regulation in Kentucky, check out the following article.