House Appropriations Committee Approves Additional Long Term Care Funding
This week the House Appropriations Committee met to debate and pass out a mega budget bill H Sub for SB 42 for State Fiscal Year 2024 (which begins July 1, 2023). After some previous delays to further vet social service budget recommendations, the Committee unanimously approved all of the funding recommendations for long term care programs. The text of the lengthy bill has not yet been posted, but we believe these are the funding asks approved by the committee:
- $29 M in State General Funds to fully fund nursing facility rate rebase with inflation factor through December 31, 2023
- $24.6 M in State General Funds to fund a daily Medicaid payment add-on to distribute per Medicaid resident based on the percentage of Medicaid residents as reported on a facility’s annual cost report.
- 10% increase HCBS-FE rates in assisted living facilities
- 5% increase PACE reimbursement rates
Next steps: The House will meet next week to debate and hopefully approve their budget bill with our long term care funding included. The first week of April, House and Senate negotiators will begin meeting to reach a budget compromise to send to the Governor. The mega budget approved by the Senate does not include additional funding for long term care programs, and so there will be a wide gulf between the two chambers as negotiations start.
Salon Licensing Bill Continues Forward
Senate Public Health and Welfare quickly voted to approve HB 2408 which clarifies once and for all that adult care homes and hospitals are not required to have salons licensed by the Boards of Cosmetology or Barbering. The committee voted to amend the bill into HB 2125 which also addresses administrative procedure issues around body art. I don’t think we’ve ever been connected with tattoos and body piercings before, so that’s fresh and fun. HB 2125 will now head to the full Senate for consideration.
Senate Committee Amends No Patient Left Alone Bill
After supporting HB 2264 and its aim to protect resident rights to visitation while acknowledging the necessity of following federal requirements, we are quickly back to opposing the legislation. The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee voted to amend HB 2264 in several places, including the removal of the language allowing adult care homes and hospitals to follow federal requirements necessary to preserve federal funding. The Senate committee left in the liability protections for following the visitation law. The bill now moves to the full Senate for consideration.
Bill Tracker
- S Sub for HB 2390 (Formerly SB 6) Restricting the authority of the secretary of health and environment and local health officers to prevent the introduction and spread of infectious or contagious diseases.
- SB 62 Enacting the protect vulnerable adults from financial exploitation act.
- SB 277 Regulation of temporary health care staffing agencies
- HB 2023 Creating the crime of interference with the conduct of a health care facility
- HB 2264 Enacting the patient right to visitation act to require patient care facilities to adopt visitation rules to allow certain relatives and other persons, including clergy, to visit terminally ill patients and other patients making major medical decisions
- HB 2292 Establishing tax credit and grant program to support health care apprenticeship programs
- HB 2125 (Formerly HB 2408) Exempting certain services provided in an adult care home from board of cosmetology and barbering oversight
- H Sub for SB 42 House mega budget bill (bill text not yet published)
- S Sub for SB 155 Senate mega budget bill
