BILL REQ. #:  H-3857.1 

Read first time 01/16/2006.   Referred to Committee on Health Care.

     AN ACT Relating to reporting to the legislature of holding a boarding home medicaid eligible resident's room or unit; and amending RCW 18.20.290.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 18.20.290 and 2004 c 142 s 13 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) When a boarding home contracts with the department to provide adult residential care services, enhanced adult residential care services, or assisted living services under chapter 74.39A RCW, the boarding home must hold a medicaid eligible resident's room or unit when short-term care is needed in a nursing home or hospital, the resident is likely to return to the boarding home, and payment is made under subsection (2) of this section.
     (2) The medicaid resident's bed or unit shall be held for up to twenty days. The per day bed or unit hold compensation amount shall be seventy percent of the daily rate paid for the first seven days the bed or unit is held for the resident who needs short-term nursing home care or hospitalization. The rate for the eighth through the twentieth day a bed is held shall be established in rule, but shall be no lower than ten dollars per day the bed or unit is held.
     (3) The boarding home may seek third-party payment to hold a bed or unit for twenty-one days or longer. The third-party payment shall not exceed the medicaid daily rate paid to the facility for the resident. If third-party payment is not available, the medicaid resident may return to the first available and appropriate bed or unit, if the resident continues to meet the admission criteria under this chapter.
     (4) The department shall monitor the use and impact of the policy established under this section and shall report its findings to the appropriate committees of the senate and house of representatives by December 31, 2005.
     (((5) This section expires June 30, 2006.))