New Staff Training Requirements in Federal Nursing Home Regulations

New staff training requirements in CMS-certified nursing homes are now mandated for “dementia care” and “abuse prevention” in Section 6121 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA; Interpretive Guidelines for inclusion in each nurse aide’s annual training program; these ACA training requirements went into affect on November 28, 2016).

In addition, the new “dementia management and abuse prevention” requirements in the new Federal nursing home regulations (CFR 483.95). The entire Training Requirements section will be implemented in Phase 3 (November 2019) with the following exceptions:

(c)  Abuse, neglect, and exploitation training – Implemented in Phase 1 (November 2016).

(g)(1) Regarding in-service training, (g)(2) dementia management & abuse prevention training, (g)(4) care of the cognitively impaired – Implemented in Phase 1 (November 2016).

(h) Training of feeding assistants – Implemented in Phase 1 (November 2016).

Will be glad to discuss with you ways to meet your new Federal staff training requirements pertaining to care of residents with dementia in general and the prevention of various forms of distressing and harmful behavioral expressions (several of which — such as resident-to-resident incidents — are frequently cited by state surveyor agencies as “Neglect,” and “Abuse”).