ABA: Make Private Rooms Mandatory
The American Bar Association in August 2021 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling on Congress to require private bedrooms and bathrooms in nursing homes, urging lawmakers to come up with a phased-in regulatory structure to achieve that goal — while also exploring a variety of incentives for providers to invest in upgrading their aging physical plants.
The ABA offered a host of potential solutions, including:
- Expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage for private-room care
- Waiving certificate of need (CON) requirements for small-home developments
- Providing low-cost financing options for developers and operators through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other federal agencies
- Revising building-inspection guidelines to accommodate small-home innovations that did not exist when the rules were first developed
The Green House Project applauds the ABA’s advocacy for lasting change in long-term care! To learn more about the resolution, check out GHP’s quick fact sheet or read the document in its entirety.