Legislative Bulletin: Help LeadingAge NY Maintain Our Pressure on Lawmakers!

May 20, 2022

Adult Care Facility Penalties Bill Amended

This week, the Adult Care Facility (ACF) Penalties legislation A.196-C (Gottfried)/S.1576-C (Rivera) was amended by both houses of the State Legislature. While the amendments to the bill are in our favor, and they restore the ability of facilities to rectify repeat violations, we are still greatly concerned by the penalties proposed in this bill. The legislation proposes to increase penalties for ACF violations from up to $1,000 per day to $2,000 per violation per day—or $3,000 per day for a repeat violation.

Additionally, the bill’s amending at this late stage of the legislative calendar suggests the bill could move over the remaining two weeks of session. As a reminder, the legislative session is scheduled to conclude on June 2^nd, and there are six legislative session days remaining. Still, a lot can happen in those six days.

The ACF Penalties bill has not yet been passed in either house of the State Legislature, however, it is on the Assembly Calendar and could be called up for a vote at any time. Right now, we are focusing our advocacy efforts on the State Assembly.

Please Call Your State ASSEMBLY MEMBER NOW in Opposition to A.196-C (Gottfried) and ask your Assembly Member to bring their opposition to legislative leadership! Members can use the below talking points to inform your phone call. You can also reference our memo of opposition to the bill. Find your ASSEMBLY MEMBER’S phone number here.

After you make your phone call, please also take a moment to send this digital advocacy letter, and share it with your colleagues: Oppose an Increase in Penalties to ACF!

TALKING POINTS:

I am calling you today in opposition to bill A.196-C (Gottfried). The bill was recently amended and has been laid aside on the Assembly Calendar.
As someone who works in and helps to operate an adult care facility in your district, serving our community and our most vulnerable individuals, I am extremely disheartened to see that this bill is still being considered by the Legislature.
While I share the legislatures desire to ensure resident safety and excellent quality of care for the people we serve, an increase in penalties is not the way to accomplish this goal.
Proposing to increase penalties up to $3,000 after we have endured over two years of operating in a pandemic with no state financial support will not benefit our residents or resident care.
This bill fails to recognize the many burdens and regulations already imposed on adult care facilities that are trying to provide good care. It also fails to recognize that we are still operating in the midst of a pandemic, managing COVID-19 outbreaks, struggling to find staff and trying to recover from significant financial losses imposed by State testing and PPE mandates, and the pandemic itself.
Adult care facilities are already subject to fines up-to $1,000 for violations in the state survey process and otherwise. These violations are often for clerical, issues that don’t relate to resident care such as submitting our daily HERDS survey only a minute or two late, or having to replace an old carpet that may have a couple of stains. [insert any other examples of inconsequential violations your org has been cited for]
These fines are frequently imposed when no resident well-being or safety is being threatened. Now, this bill will enhance those penalties by well-over 100%.
This year’s state budget was finalized with a significant state surplus, during an on-going public health emergency, healthcare workforce emergency and global pandemic. Many private industries such as the arts, entertainment, sports, etc. saw significant “covid-relief” and investment from the state.
However, my facility, which was subject to significant, costly state mandates and was directly taking care of our state’s most vulnerable individuals has not seen a dollar of state-directed COVID-19 relief funding or support. [if you have financial details specific to your facility, that may be beneficial].
The Legislature moving to impose a steep increase in penalties on top of our financial and operational losses from the pandemic is harmful, not helpful, to the residents in our care.
The state should be supporting and bolstering the assisted living/adult care facility model of care, not depleting us of the limited resources we have.
Our focus at this time should be on ensuring that ACFs and other long term and post-acute care providers have the resources necessary to ensure the safety of the people they serve and employ- not on enforcing increased penalties on providers.
For these reasons, I urge you to oppose A.196-C (Gottfried) if it comes up for a vote on the Assembly Floor, and at a minimum, I ask that you bring these concerns to your leadership.

Oppose an Increase in Penalties for Mandatory Overtime!

On Tuesday, bill A.286-A (Gunther)/S.1997-A (Jackson) was passed in the Assembly. In the Senate, the bill sits on the Senate Calendar, and could be called up for a vote on any remaining session day over the next two weeks. As a reminder, the legislative session is scheduled to conclude on June 2nd, and there are six legislative session days remaining.

This bill would significantly increase penalties to hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities for requiring nurses to work more than their regularly scheduled hours, except under limited circumstances. It proposes to increase civil penalties on providers, up-to $1,000 for a first violation, $2,000 for a second violation, or $3,000 for a third or subsequent violation. The employee would also receive an additional fifteen percent of the overtime payment from the employer for each violation as damages.

The bill ignores the operational realities of nursing homes and other facilities given statewide staffing shortages and the demand for high nurse-resident ratios. Imposing these new penalties will only further deprive nursing homes of the funds they need to pay workers and deliver high quality care. Additionally, none of the funding that has been appropriated for nursing home staffing in the last two state budget agreements have been dispersed.

Please Call Your State SENATOR NOW in Opposition to S.1997 (Jackson) and ask your Senator to bring these concerns to legislative leadership! Members can use the below talking points to inform your phone call. You can also reference our memo of opposition to the bill. Find your SENATOR’S phone number here.

After you make your phone call, please also take a moment to send this digital advocacy letter, and share it with your colleagues: Oppose Penalties for Mandatory Overtime!

TALKING POINTS

I am calling you today in opposition to bill S.1997 (Jackson), which sits on the Senate Calendar and was passed by the Assembly last night.
If passed, this bill would further restrict the use of mandatory overtime in nursing homes, home care agencies, and other health care providers, and would increase civil penalties up-to $3,000 for repeat violations.
No non-profit nursing home provider wants to require mandatory overtime of our nurses. Our dedicated staff already do so much and work so hard for our residents during a standard work week. We do not wish to ask more of them.
However, due to severe staffing shortages, and the need to comply with the new nurse hours requirement for nursing homes, mandating overtime is sometimes the only option to ensure resident care and compliance with the new nurse hours requirement.
The solution to reducing nurse overtime in nursing homes is to provide better Medicaid reimbursement to allow for more competitive salaries, and more investment in developing and training our long-term care workforce. The answer is not to impose more penalties.
With this bill, most nursing homes across the state will be required to choose between being penalized for not reaching the nurse hours requirement, or being penalized for having to use mandatory overtime in order to comply with the nurse hours law.
There is already a financial disincentive for employers not to require mandatory overtime. Overtime is costly, and we are already paying exorbitant fees to staffing agencies to try to get nurses in the door. The last thing we want to do is require overtime of our existing, directly-employed nurses. However, in the event that resident needs demand that of our organization use mandatory overtime, we should not be penalized for doing so.
Lastly, both this year’s budget and last year’s appropriated funding to help with nursing home staffing… none of those dollars have yet been distributed to nursing homes, and we are not hearing that this funding will come any time soon, despite the legislatures intent. We need funding to attract the workforce we need, not more penalties for the realities that are out of our control.
For these reasons, I urge you to oppose S.1997 (Jackson) if it comes up for a vote on the Senate Floor, and at a minimum, I ask that you bring these concerns to your leadership.

Thank you for taking action, and please let us know of any feedback you receive from lawmakers!

Oppose Restrictions to Home Care Overtime!

Another bill that threatens passage over the next six legislative session days is bill A.181-A (Gunther)/S.4885-A (Savino). This legislation adds home care visits to the existing law that no health care employer shall require a registered professional nurse or a licensed practical nurse to work more than that nurse’s regularly scheduled work hours or home care visits. Refusal to work overtime would not be considered patient abandonment and would not constitute professional misconduct. Nurses would continue to be able to work overtime on a voluntary basis.

LeadingAge New York opposes this bill because it fails to take into account the reality of health care workforce shortages and could inadvertently jeopardize the access to home health care. Health care providers are experiencing the most severe workforce shortages in a decade. As a result, providers are forced to rely on the use of staffing agency personnel and occasionally, staff overtime.

Please CLICK HERE to email your lawmakers TODAY in opposition to restrictions on home care overtime!

Help LeadingAge NY Maintain Our Pressure on Lawmakers!

This week, several LeadingAge NY priority bills continued their movement through the legislative process. We have been blown away by our members’ engagement in advocacy thus far, THANK YOU for all you are doing! However, it is critical that we maintain our pressure on lawmakers over the final two weeks of legislative session. If we let up now, it is possible we will see more harmful proposals approved by the legislature and signed into law.

In addition to the phone call alerts above, please take a moment to use the digital email campaigns below to contact state lawmakers on LeadingAge NY priorities today! It only takes a few clicks and will make all the difference! Even if you have already used these alerts in the past, we strongly recommend you use them again and share with your colleagues!

Thank you for all your advocacy!

Nursing Home Notification Bill Passed in Senate and Assembly

Unfortunately, a piece of legislation that LeadingAge NY opposes, bill A.6052 (Lunsford)/S.1785-A (Skoufis), was approved and passed by the Senate on Wednesday. The bill has already been passed by the Assembly, during the thick of State Budget negotiations on March 23^rd, and has thus been approved by both houses of the State Legislature.

LeadingAge NY strongly opposes this legislation which requires nursing homes to notify all residents and their families or guardians within twelve hours of the detection of any pandemic-related infection. The legislation also requires nursing homes to cohort residents “suspected of being infectious.” LeadingAge NY’s memo of opposition to the bill is available here.

While the bill was passed by the Senate, the vote was not unanimous. The bill was “laid aside” for debate and Senator Borrello of Western New York made a point to highlight all of our concerns with this legislation. While we are disappointed to see the bill’s passage, we are grateful that the Senate Minority vocalized our concerns and made the rest of the chamber better aware of what they were approving. Additionally, LeadingAge NY will have another opportunity to weigh in on this legislation, and advocate for potential amendments, when the bill is delivered to the Governor for action later this year.

A recording of Wednesday’s Senate session proceedings is available here, and the debate on S.1785 led by Senator Borrello begins at approximately 39 minutes.

LeadingAge NY Comments on 1115 Waiver Request

On Tuesday May 3rd, the Department of Health (DOH) held the first of two virtual public hearings to provide an overview of the State’s 1115 waiver amendment request: Making Targeted, Evidence-Based Investments to Address the Health Disparities Exacerbated by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The second of the hearings was held on May 10^th.

The May 3^rd hearing lasted three-hours and was comprised of a presentation from the DOH, and two hours-worth of public comments from an array of stakeholders, including LeadingAge NY. LeadingAge NY Executive Vice President, Karen Lipson, weighed in on the waiver process and how the needs of older New Yorkers and those providers that serve them could be better met through the waiver. A recording of the entire May 3^rd hearing, along with presentation from DOH is available here. The slides describing the waiver request are available here. If you’d like to specifically view Karen Lipson’s testimony and comments, they can be viewed here.

LeadingAge NY will be once again submitting written comments on the 1115 waiver this afternoon. Comments submitted by LeadingAge NY will be published on our website once submitted.

LeadingAge NY Featured in Newsday on Vaccine Access for Seniors

This week, Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at LeadingAge New York, Diane Darbyshire was featured in a Guest Essay in Newsday. The piece points out the disparities in access and cost of standard vaccines for older adults. “Depending on what kind of insurance coverage you have, the costs for vaccines to prevent such illnesses as pneumococcal disease, shingles and whooping cough can vary widely,” says Darbyshire. “[However,] legislation pending in Congress could take the cost, confusion, and disparities out of adult immunizations. The Protecting Seniors through Immunization Act seeks to make access more equal by eliminating financial and other barriers for vaccines as well as instituting smart strategies to educate older Americans on the topic.”

The piece also discusses the importance of older adults keeping up with their vaccines. Older adults are more susceptible to communicable diseases due to weakening immune systems. Access and affordability of vaccines for older adults is critical to the health and wellbeing of individuals as they age. The essay can be read in its entirety here.

ACTION ALERT: Congress Must Pass New COVID-19 Funding Now

With COVID-19 cases, test positivity rates, and hospitalizations again on the rise, the country is not past the pandemic. Now is the time to ask Congress to fully fund additional support for the nation’s ongoing efforts to fight COVID-19—especially for older adults who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Experts are predicting new surges in the late Summer and Fall but additional funding is needed to make sure the country has enough vaccines, boosters, tests, and treatments to meet projected needs. We know the tools we need to confront COVID-19; Congress must act now so communities across the nation are prepared to deal with the coming surges.

We must ensure that test kits and testing locations remain available and accessible to everyone who needs them and that vaccines (including boosters) are readily available and robustly promoted. Treatments and therapeutics must also be easy to find and access, while research to find new tests, vaccines, and treatments continue.

Please CLICK HERE to write to your members of Congress and advocate for more COVID-19 relief! It only takes a few clicks!

LeadingAge & LeadingAge New York Coronavirus Resources

LeadingAge NY continues to closely follow all COVID-19 news and we are doing our best to keep members informed of updates, recommendations and guidelines from the Department of Health (DOH).

LeadingAge NY and LeadingAge National Member resources are linked below.

LeadingAge NY Coronavirus Resources

LeadingAge NY COVID-19 Weekly Update calls – Mondays at 11 a.m. Click here to join the call from your computer, android or apple device. Or you can join the call by dialing in: 877 853 5257 (Toll Free); Webinar ID: 852 964 255.

LeadingAge National Coronavirus Resources Page

COVID-19 Group in the MyLeadingAge Member Community

LeadingAge National Coronavirus Policy Updates – Mondays and Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. Past call recordings are available here and you can register here for future calls.

Contact: Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org