In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike a federal provision which denied federal benefits to same-sex couples, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a memorandum dated June 28, 2013 regarding resident visitation policies in Long Term Care (LTC) facilities. All Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing homes are now required to extend the same spousal visitation rights to its residents regardless of sexual orientation.

Under current regulations, all residents of LTC facilities must be advised of their right to receive visitors consistent with their expressed preferences on a 24-hour basis. LTC facilities must ensure that all residents are given full and equal visitation privileges, including visits from spouses (including same-sex spouses), domestic partners (including same-sex domestic partners), other family members, and friends. Such privileges are subject to “reasonable restrictions,” however, in order to protect the security of the facilities residents, such as denying access to those engaging in disruptive behavior. Surveyors evaluating an LTC facility are instructed to interview residents and family members in order to ascertain whether residents understand their rights as it pertains to visitation and whether the facility has limited or restricted visitors against resident wishes and outside of any reasonable restrictions. Facilities that fail to ensure these rights may be subject to penalties and fines.

You can read the memo at the following address: http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/Survey-and-Cert-Letter-13-42.pdf.

To learn more about these regulations, contact an attorney at DLM Legal today at info@dlmlegal.com or 216.635.0002.