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Groups Push for Assisted Living
Oversight Kansas City Star April
28, 2003 WASHINGTON
-A
national center should be established to oversee the rapidly expanding
assisted living industry, health care and consumer groups recommended in a
report being presented to the Senate Tuesday. The
report, the product of a two-year study by nearly 50 groups, also urges
that states require licensing for any facility that declares itself to be
an assisted living residence. It said Washington should enforce federal
laws better in civil rights, national abuse registries and consumer
protection. About
800,000 Americans currently live in around 33,000 assisted living centers,
seen by many as alternatives to nursing homes for more independent older
people. While
two-thirds of the states have passed legislation or issued regulations to
license or monitor the centers, there have been growing worries about
treatment of some of the frailer residents of the centers, which are not
subject to the same scrutiny as nursing homes. The
Assisted Living Workgroup report grew out of a Senate Special Aging
Committee hearing two years ago at which then-Chairman John Breaux, D-La.,
raised questions about the ability of some assisted living centers to
provide the health care services required by many of their residents. Health
care professionals, providers, consumer groups and the disability
community participated in the report being presented to the Special Aging
Committee. Among
recommendations backed by two-thirds of the participants was to establish
a national Center for Excellence in Assisted Living, a private-public
entity that would help the states develop performance standards for
assisted living facilities and report to Congress on the state of the
industry. The
report also said states and Congress should adequately fund an ombudsman
program to resolve complaints and represent resident interests in licensed
assisted living centers, and that states should review past performances
prior to granting licenses. It
recommended that states provide the public with better access to
regulations, surveys and inspection reports. Donna
Lenhoff, executive director of the National Citizens' Coalition for
Nursing Home Reform, said her group dissented on many of the
recommendations. She said they didn't go far enough to protect the health
and safety of residents and didn't take into account the seriousness of
the health care needs of residents, especially those with dementia. A minority report urges that states establish more than one level of license, depending on physical and mental conditions of residents at the facility and that assisted living facilities be subject to the same nondiscrimination rules that govern nursing homes to assure that low income Medicaid beneficiaries are treated fairly. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
