Lead March 10, 2022 - LeadingAge Illinois

Nursing and Rehabilitation:
OSHA Announces Focused Inspections of Nursing Homes

Housing:
Largest Funding for New Section 202 Homes Since 2010
HUD Issues More Than $20 Million in COVID-19 Supplemental Payments

Home and Community Based Services (HCBS):
CMS Home Health, Hospice, and DME Open Door Forum Recap

Other:
PACE Update

Top Stories:
LeadingAge Illinois, Argentum Hold Virtual Hill Visits
As part of the annual Argentum Public Policy Institute, LeadingAge Illinois held virtual hill visits this week with a number of congressional offices. On Tuesday, we met with U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth to detail the needs of senior living providers and residents. We also met with the offices of Senator Durbin and representatives Underwood and Quigley. Information was also distributed to the other members of Congress in the Illinois delegation. Along with members, we will be back on Capitol Hill at the end of the month for the LeadingAge Leadership Summit. We hope to see you their as we advocate for members and residents.

Nursing and Rehabilitation:

OSHA Announces Focused Inspections of Nursing Homes
OSHA has announced that they will initiate focused inspections and investigations of nursing homes that treat COVID-19 patients. The intent of the OSHA initiative is to magnify their presence in high-hazard healthcare facilities over a three-month period (March 9, 2022 to June 9, 2022), to encourage employers to take the necessary steps to protect their workers against the hazards of COVID-19. Inspections opened under this initiative shall comprise 15% of all inspections per Region for the designated three-month period.

An OSHA memorandum outlines instructions and guidance for the short-term inspection initiative. This initiative supplements OSHA’s targeted enforcement under the COVID-19 National Emphasis Program (NEP) by focusing on follow-up and monitoring inspections of hospitals and skilled nursing care facilities that OSHA had previously inspected or investigated.

OSHA noted in the announcement that although OSHA withdrew the non-recordkeeping portions of the Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) on December 27, 2021, the agency will accept continued compliance with the Healthcare ETS as satisfying an employers’ related obligations under the General Duty Clause, Personal Protective Equipment, and Respiratory Protection standards.

Housing:

Largest Funding for New Section 202 Homes Since 2010
U.S. Congress is finally just about done completing the FY22 appropriations bill and there’s great news for HUD and for senior housing. The omnibus fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill, released March 9, includes a 21% increase for HUD’s Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program and the largest funding for new Section 202 homes since fiscal year 2010.

The final FY22 bill, to be enacted more than five months into the fiscal year, includes other LeadingAge priorities, funding and improvements for the participation of Section 202/PRACs in HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program, full renewal funding for existing Section 202 Project Rental Assistance Contracts (PRACs), Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, and Service Coordinator grants, and instructions for HUD on helping to address the gap in broadband access among HUD-assisted households. The bill also appears to provide funding for new Service Coordinators; LeadingAge is confirming this.

The bill is expected to be passed quickly by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Biden before the March 11 end of the current Continuing Resolution, although a one or two-day extension of the CR is possible.

A LeadingAge funding chart comparing FY21 and FY22 funding levels is here. The full text of the bill is here.

HUD Issues More Than $20 Million in COVID-19 Supplemental Payments
HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing announced that it has issued COVID-19 Supplemental Payments (CSP) totaling more than $20 million. The payments have gone to the owners/agents with Section 8 project based rental assistance and Section 202 contracts who requested reimbursements throughout four rounds of CARES Act funding, with the most recent payments, pending payments, or approvals sent to housing providers last week. LeadingAge had advocated strongly for certain flexibilities and extensions within the CSP process that allowed many LeadingAge members to secure reimbursements for both operational and capital COVID-19 costs at senior housing communities, including costs for the installation of building-wide Wi-Fi systems. For the owners who have not yet received decision notification emails for the fourth round, please note that HUD anticipates queuing additional payments by the end of this week. For owners who have not yet received an approval or denial notification, they can expect to receive an email communication from HUD within the next week.

Home and Community Based Services (HCBS):

CMS Home Health, Hospice, and DME Open Door Forum Recap
On February 24, CMS hosted an Open Door Forum for Home Health, Hospice and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) providers with some important updates for home health providers on Notice of Admission as well as updates on home health and hospice public reporting refreshes. You can view an article with these updates and more here.

Other:

PACE Update
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) has posted an updated timeline for the PACE program, which is currently under development. The new timeline can be found on the PACE Homepage under the Development Plan section.