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Regulatory Agencies Paper

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Regulatory Agencies Paper HCS/437 August 18, 2014 Joyce Wooten Instructor / Nicolas Gross Regulatory Agencies Paper The concept of regulatory agencies has many boundaries and their responsibility is to license long-term care facilities to ensure compliance of laws and regulations. It is stated that in the United States the long-term care (LTC) marketplace is normally recognized as one of the most strongly regulated sectors in the economy, although there are differences in the degree of regulations across long term care establishments (Stevenson & Grabowski, 2006). Therefore, every long term facility are held responsible to abide by the regulations set forth to properly provide accurate …show more content…

State agencies are responsible for annual certification inspections and any complaint investigations. Take for example, when excessive flaws and defects are detected during an inspection; there are penalties that may be placed on facilities, including civil money penalties, denial of payment for new admissions, state monitoring, temporary management, and immediate termination. The CMS funds most of the costs of the certification process and oversees the state agencies to ensure that the federal rules are implemented properly (Stevenson & Grabowski, 2006). Another regulatory agency is Ombudsman program that was authorized under the Older Americans Act and administered by the Federal Administration on Aging, the LTC ombudsman program began in 1972 as a trial program and now every state has upheld its cause. (Stevenson & Grabowski, 2006). The program is mainly comprised of volunteer staff and the initial functions of the ombudsman program are to settle grievances made by or for residents of LTC facilities, in addition to educating providers and the public about residents’ rights and good care practices, and to serve as general advocates for residents in LTC facilities. Although the Ombudsman program has no authority to set or enforce specific standards of care, the program has been found to be a positive, if under-resourced, influence on quality of care. Take for example, the government enforcement of quality

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