Professor Nina Kohn recently spoke with Law360 on the lawsuit State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, et al. that seeks to overturn minimum nursing home staffing levels as set by the U.S Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April.
In the article “With Billions At Stake, Texas Suits Target Nursing Home Rule” states, Kohn says allegations that the rule is arbitrary and capricious, are undermined by research on the staffing levels necessary to avoid neglect and the full regulatory review CMS carried out before issuing the standards.
“Already, nursing homes were required to have sufficient staff to meet resident needs,” Kohn told Law360. “The problem is that they routinely didn’t. And because there was no set number of staff hours per day set, it was hard for regulators to hold nursing homes accountable for not having the staff needed to avoid neglect.”
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