Senate Bill No. 348
(By Senators Chafin and Walker)
____________
[Introduced February 14, 1995; referred to the Committee
on Health and Human Resources.]
____________
A BILL to amend and reenact section five, article five-c, chapter
sixteen of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to requiring that
the alphabetic rating assigned to a nursing, personal care
or residential care home by the board of health be posted on
the entrance of the facility and disclosed in any contract
or agreement made with patients or members of their families
or in any promotional or informational brochure or other
literature.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section five, article five-c, chapter sixteen of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 5C. NURSING AND PERSONAL CARE HOMES AND RESIDENTIAL
BOARD AND CARE HOMES.
§16-5C-5. Rules and Regulations; minimum standards for
facilities; rating of facilities.
(a) All rules and regulations shall be approved by the board
of health and promulgated in the manner provided by the
provisions of article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code.
The board of health shall adopt, amend or repeal such rules and
regulations as may be necessary or proper to carry out the
purposes and intent of this article and to enable the director to
exercise the powers and perform the duties conferred upon the
director by this article.
(b) The board of health shall promulgate regulations
establishing minimum standards of operation of facilities
including, but not limited to, the following:
(1) Administrative policies, including: (i) An affirmative
statement of the right of access to facilities by members of
recognized community organizations and community legal services
programs whose purposes include rendering assistance without
charge to patients, consistent with the right of patients to
privacy; and (ii) a statement of the rights and responsibilities
of patients in facilities which prescribe, as a minimum, such a
statement of patients' rights as included in the United State
department of health, education and welfare regulations, in force
on the effective date of this article, governing participation of
intermediate care facilities in the medicare and medicaid
programs pursuant to titles eighteen and nineteen of the Social
Security Act;
(2) Minimum numbers and qualifications of personnel,
including management, medical and nursing, aides, orderlies and support personnel, according to the size and classification of
the facility;
(3) Safety requirements;
(4) Sanitation requirements;
(5) Protective and personal services to be provided;
(6) Dietary services to be provided;
(7) Maintenance of health records;
(8) Social and recreational activities to be made available;
and
(9) Such other categories as the board of health determines
to be appropriate to ensure patient's health, safety and welfare.
(c) The board of health shall include in its regulations
detailed standards for each of the categories of standards
established pursuant to subsections (b) and (d) of this section,
and shall classify such standards as follows: Class I standards
are standards the violation of which, the board of health
determines, would present either an imminent danger to the
health, safety or welfare of any patient or a substantial
probability that death or serious physical harm would result;
Class II standards are standards which the board of health
determines have a direct or immediate relationship to the health,
safety or welfare of any patient, but which do not create
imminent danger; Class III standards are standards which the
board of health determines have an indirect or a potential impact
on the health, safety or welfare of any patient.
(d) The board of health shall establish:
(1) Standards grouped into broad general categories
including, but not limited to, nursing services, dietetic
services, medical services, the physical facility and patient
rights. Standards within each category shall be assigned a
numerical value based on its classification according to
subsection (c) of this section to represent full compliance with
the standard. The board of health shall also determine numerical
values for a standard to represent an acceptable level or levels
of partial but substantial compliance with the standard, if
applicable.
(2) A range of values for each category based on the values
for individual standards to represent full compliance and various
levels of acceptable partial but substantial compliance with the
category. A facility must attain an acceptable substantial level
of compliance for each and every individual category to be deemed
in substantial compliance with this article and the regulations
promulgated hereunder.
(3) Standards for which extra numerical credit may be
earned. Such extra credit shall not be used to counterbalance
unacceptable levels of compliance with other standards, but may
be used to raise a score where the facility is already in partial
compliance.
(e) Not later than the first day of March, one thousand nine
hundred eighty-nine, the board of health shall establish a system
of rating facilities, as part of the licensing procedure, in
accordance with the criteria established pursuant to this section. Such system shall include four rating categories
entitled, from the highest to lowest, "A," "B," "C" and "F." A
rating of "F" shall be assigned to those facilities whose
performance is not in substantial compliance with this article
and regulations promulgated hereunder, and shall be the basis for
issuance of a provisional license pursuant to subsection (d),
section six of this article, or the limitation, suspension,
revocation or denial of a license. The rating assigned to each
facility shall be on the basis of its immediately prior
inspection, and shall be deemed a part of the results and
findings of that inspection, and shall be included on the license
issued to the facility pursuant to section six of this article.
The rating shall, in addition, be posted at the entrance to each
facility and disclosed in any contract or agreement with any
patient or family member of the patient and in any promotional or
informational brochure or other literature published or
distributed by or on behalf of any facility.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to require any nursing,
personal or residential care home to post the rating it receives
from the board of health at its front entrance. The bill also
requires disclosure of such rating in any contract with patients
or their families and in any promotional or informational
brochures such facility distributes or publishes.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.