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2016 Oregon LTC State Report
www.ohca.com8
Safety and
Compliance Oversight
Licensed long term care providers as well as hospitals are subject to
thousands of pages of federal and state rules and regulations and are
scrutinized by a wide range of oversight and advocacy agencies. Service
providers are required to meet federal, state, and local compliance
standards for resident care, safety, and quality of life.
Federal law requires nursing care centers that are Medicare and/or Medicaid
certified to be inspected by state surveyors who are contracted by the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). Skilled nursing facilities are also
subject to comply with an additional set of state licensing standards.
For assisted living and residential care settings, new federal standards
called home and community-based service settings (HCBS) standards were
recently adopted by CMS and are now required in communities nationwide.
All Oregon assisted living and residential care communities are currently
under review for compliance with these standards.
In Oregon, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities, and
residential care communities are subject to a wide-range of oversight
from the Department of Human Services (DHS). For example, these
communities are subject to licensing and complaint surveys performed
by the Safety, Oversight, and Quality Unit. All licensing and complaint
surveys in Oregon are unannounced, and onsite inspection teams follow
standardized protocols which include resident, family, and staff interviews
and comprehensive audits of resident records.
Additional focus reviews are deployed when a complaint is filed against a
service provider. These are performed by state survey staff (nursing facilities)
or compliance specialists (assisted living and residential care communities).
Investigations can also be performed by the Oregon DHS Office of Adult
Protective Services (APS) at state licensed facilities or in private homes in
the community if there are allegations of abuse or suspected abuse.
LONG TERM CARE SERVICE PROVIDERS ARE SUBJECT TO
THOUSANDS OF PAGES OF RULES AND REGULATIONS
AND MULTIPLE LAYERS OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT.