Iowa Capital Dispatch
Democratic state lawmakers are pushing legislation to increase state oversight of nursing homes while Republican legislators are advancing a bill that could reduce such oversight.
Both initiatives are being advanced now due to a spate of deaths and serious injuries tied to regulatory violations in Iowa nursing homes. Republican lawmakers say the situation calls for a more “collaborative” approach to enforcement, while Democrats argue the state isn’t being tough enough on violators.
On Tuesday, the House Subcommittee on Health and Human Services reviewed a GOP-backed bill, House Study Bill 691, that would revise the state law that requires the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing to make a preliminary review of a nursing home complaint and, unless DIAL concludes the complaint is intended to harass a facility, make an on-site inspection.
The bill would add new exceptions to the requirement for on-site inspections, allowing DIAL to forgo an on-site visit if the agency concludes the complaint involves an issue that was already the subject of a complaint or a self-report from the facility itself within the previous 90 days. So, for example, if a facility self-reported an incident tied to insufficient staffing or a failure to monitor residents, it might not face another on-site inspection if a resident complained of the same issue two months later.
