Ten bills that tighten state oversight of assisted living homes the most sweeping package of reforms since regulations were first enacted in 1985 are headed to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.One bill increases civil penalties from $150 to $15,000 if poor care leads to the death of an assisted living resident. Two bills require more rigorous training for the staffs at the 7,Jimmy Choo Isabel Champagne,570 homes in the state. A fourth creates a Bill of Rights for residents similar to the law for patients in nursing homes.
If these bills are signed, I think it s historic, said Pat McGinnis,Kate Spade Dresses On Sale, executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. We made a lot of very good progress this year, said Sally Michael, president of the 500-member California Assisted Living Association, the state s largest industry group. We re looking at stronger oversight. Overall, the Legislature approved 12 reform bills this year and defeated five. Brown has already signed two of the bills.Four Los Angeles area Assembly members authored bills in the package: Cheryl R. Brown,Kate Spade London, D-San Bernardino; Ian Calderon, D-Whittier; Steve Fox, D-Palmdale; and Freddie Rodriguez, D-Chino.
One big defeat for consumer advocates was a bill to require the Department of Social Services to post online all inspection reports and related documents for every facility in the state. Such records are now kept only on paper in unindexed files stored in offices scattered around the state, forcing families to travel long distances and rifle through voluminous reports if they want to compare homes they are considering for aging relatives.Legislators also blocked a bill that would have required the department to inspect facilities every year not every five years, as the law now requires after administration officials raised budget concerns. Calderon, who sponsored the bill, promises to bring it back next year.
An industry group called 6Beds Inc. targeted bills that it said would unfairly impose regulatory and financial pressures on small, lower-cost homes, forcing some to close. The group expressed concern about a proposal to increase fines from $150 to $1,000 for a number of violations. That language was eventually removed from the bill hiking the top fine on facilities.The bills were sparked by a 2013 burst of news reports on problems in assisted living facilities in California.Brown has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bills. He has not expressed his views publicly about their contents, however his office was involved in guiding several of the current group of bills to passage.
Schoch is a senior writer for the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting at USC Annenberg, a news reporting partner of the Los Angeles News Group. She can be reached at 626-457-4281 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.