Legislative Update
Legislative Update:
The Illinois General Assembly convened its 2022 Spring Session and has been working remotely since early January due to Omicron. Both the House and Senate expect to convene, in person, on February 1st.
House and Senate Leadership have convened a series of meetings this week for the purpose of negotiating the competing nursing home assessment/rate reform bills.
As readers will recall, Senator Ann Gillespie filed Senate Bill 2995 which is an initiative of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) and includes language that would re-design skilled nursing Medicaid rates as well as increase and re-structure the collection and distribution of the nursing home bed tax.
Senator Holmes and Representative Lisa Hernandez filed Senate Bill 3116 and House Bill 4443, which represent the alternative skilled nursing Medicaid rate re-design and bed tax re-structuring legislation proposed by the Health Care Council of Illinois.
Each of the competing bills would protect the supportive living “link” to skilled nursing rates and enhance the rate for SLF, to coincide with the skilled nursing increase.
The AALC is closely monitoring the negotiations and working to ensure that the final legislation includes the requisite language to protect and enhance SLF rates for communities across Illinois.