No. CS/CS/SB 1404
Filed under Healthcare.
Memory Care; Requiring licenses for assisted living facilities that provide memory care services; making technical changes; requiring an assisted living facility that serves memory care residents or holds itself out as providing memory care services to obtain a memory care services license; providing an exception; requiring an assisted living facility to maintain certain licensure and meet certain requirements in order to obtain a memory care services license; requiring the Agency for Health Care Administration to adopt rules governing memory care services licenses by a specified date, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDAssisted living facilities that serve residents with Alzheimer's or related dementia and market that care, or advertise memory care at all, must now get a separate memory care services license from the state.
A facility only avoids the license if it limits itself to optional supportive services open to every resident, not services aimed specifically at Alzheimer's or dementia, and follows the agency's advertising rules.
By June 2027, the state must set minimum standards: staff training, admission criteria, physical plant rules, an awake staff member at all times, and banned advertising terms for unlicensed facilities.
Facilities already caring for memory care residents when the rules take effect get a fallback: if they truly can't get licensed, they can keep those residents only after notifying them and offering to help them relocate, and must stop taking new memory care residents.
AIAdds 'memory care services' as its own license category alongside the existing standard, extended congregate care, limited nursing services, and limited mental health categories an assisted living facility can hold.
AIAn assisted living facility must get a memory care services license if it serves even one memory care resident, or if it advertises or otherwise holds itself out as providing memory care services.
AIA facility does not need the license if it solely provides supportive services to Alzheimer's or dementia residents that are optional and available to every resident, and it follows the agency's advertising rules.
AIThe Agency for Health Care Administration must adopt rules by June 1, 2027 that set minimum standards for the new license, covering training, admissions, safety, physical plant, and contract terms.
AIA facility already serving memory care residents when the rules take effect may keep them unlicensed only if it proves it can't reasonably get licensed, notifies residents, helps them relocate on request, and takes no new memory care residents.
AIThe agency's minimum standards must include a round-the-clock safety requirement: at least one awake staff member on duty at every hour at a licensed memory care facility.
AIUnlicensed facilities cannot advertise using terms like memory care, memory care facility, or dementia care; they may still advertise general supportive services for these residents if they avoid those terms.
AIOnce the agency adopts the new licensing rules, ss. 429.177 and 429.178 are repealed. Their current text is not part of this bill, so what they currently require cannot be evaluated here.