October 28th, 2008

In an op-ed published in today’s Patriot-News, David Leader, chief operating officer at Country Meadows Retirement Communities, explains why he believes that the proposed regulations for assisted living facilities will do harm to seniors, rather than help them:

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Tragically for the elderly and disabled, these regulations establish requirements that ensure that virtually no provider of personal care will enter the assisted living marketplace. Thus, in the end, the regulations hurt the very people they were designed to help.

My family has been a pioneer in providing services to the elderly and disabled in Pennsylvania as providers of personal care, home care, nursing home and rehabilitation services. But without substantial changes to the proposed regulations, I am sorry to say that our company, and other companies like ours, won’t choose to add “assisted living” to our offerings.

Although I believe that the department is well-intentioned, the regulations distort the statutory requirements of Act 56 and thus severely limit providers from safely and effectively caring for their residents.

For example, the regulations make it virtually impossible for a provider to discharge a resident who has health care needs that they are unable to safely meet. Nor can we ask a resident to leave who is repeatedly offensive or even threatening or dangerous to staff or other residents, unless we can clearly demonstrate “imminent risk of substantial harm.”

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Visit the Patriot for the entire opinion piece.