The General Assembly today approved consumer protection legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini that requires nursing homes and assisted living residences to provide prospective private pay residents with information concerning Medicaid eligibility.
“This is a consumer protection as well as health literacy bill to ensure that families not only have accurate information, but easily accessible information when placing a family member or loved one in a nursing home or assisted living facility,” explained Angelini, R-Monmouth. “It’s difficult and stressful enough having to make such a decision. We should afford families with as much transparency as possible regarding costs and fees as they play a very large part in the decision-making process.”
Angelini said she sponsored the bill as a way to address the increasing problem of private pay senior citizens being told by prospective assisted living facilities that they will have to spend down their money before they are eligible for Medicaid – without being told that they might be forced out of that facility if there is no Medicaid bed available when they have depleted their funds and are eligible. Current law requires assisted living facilities to maintain 10 percent of its beds for Medicaid residents.
The bill, A-2334, requires nursing home officials to provide prospective private pay residents with a written information sheet explaining the eligibility requirements for long-term care under the Medicaid program six months prior to the date that the private pay resident is likely to become Medicaid-eligible. In the case of assisted living facilities, officials would be required to explain eligibility for participation in a federally approved 1915 (c) Medicaid waiver program that provides assisted living services.
Assemblyman Ronald Dancer, R-Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean, is also a bill sponsor. State Senator Robert Singer, R- Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean, is the sponsor of an identical bill, S-221, which the Senate approved in March. A-2334 now heads to Governor Jon Corzine for his signature.
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