Nursing Home Law

As the clamor for a better and compassionate nursing care for our elderly grew in the 80’s, the federal government signed in to law the Nursing Home Reform Act (NRA) of 1987. It became the bible on how a particular nursing home should be run especially those who are receiving financial aid under Medicare or Medicaid.

This extensive law covers almost all aspect of how nursing care must be carried out including the minimum number of staff required to meet optimum care, the rights and restraints of the resident, the clients/residents right to privacy and the stringent requirement on how to keep records of cares and procedures are implemented.

The NRA even went to the extent of enumerating the rights of each resident such as the right to be treated with dignity, the right to know every possible known way on how to be taken cared of and allowing them to fully be given the authority to choose how. The law also identified ways on how to monitor the day to day activities of nursing homes and provides specific sanctions for any non-compliance.

Although the standard set by the NRA was initially hailed, not a few were discontented on the new nursing home law has turned out as some have noticed the weakness of the law. This led to the creation of separate state laws by most states on top of the federal law. Most of these laws are a beefed up version of the original Nursing Home Reform Act (NRA) of 1987.