Governor Baker has signed an FY 2022 Supplemental Budget Bill which will fund additional testing within the Commonwealth and provide free masks for schools and congregate settings including nursing facilities. The Legislature’s bill also includes the following three nursing facility related items:
- Re-establishing liability protections for healthcare facilities and their workers, for the period effective November 22, 2021 and applicable to claims based on acts or omissions that occur or have occurred during the outbreak of COVID-19, and subsequent variants. Senator Cyr during the Senate deliberations sponsored an MSCA amendment to include long term care facilities. This item provides health care facilities and their workers with immunity from suit and civil liability for damages alleged to have been sustained by an act or omission occurring in the course of providing health services so long as the health care services were provided in good faith and damagers were not caused by gross negligence, recklessness, or conduct with an intent to harm or discriminate. Willful misconduct by providers is not protected under this law.
- Appropriates an additional $25 million for the COVID-19 Massachusetts Emergency Paid Sick Leave Program, originally enacted in May 2021. Under the law, employers must provide up to 40 hours of paid COVID-19 sick leave for full-time employees who become sick with COVID-19 or seek to obtain a vaccine. The maximum benefit is $850. Employer costs are compensated in full via (1) the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (those with more than 500 employees) or (2) via state payment by the executive office of administration and finance. The Executive Office of Administration and Finance last summer issued a webpage notice indicating that employers may apply for reimbursement of the costs of providing emergency paid sick leave consistent with the parameters of the state law. The application is available through the Department of Revenue’s MassTaxConnect website. Further information, including detailed instructions, is available by clicking here.
- Putting Patients Notice and Price Disclosure Requirements Implementation Date Delayed to July 31, 2022. Under the “Patient First” law which applies to nursing homes, health care providers are required to notify patients about charges and payments for proposed admissions, procedures, services, and referrals that are specific to the patient’s insurance carrier. This law authorizes the DPH, consistent with its authority to regulate health care providers, to penalize providers who fail to comply with a penalty up to $2,500 for each instance of non-compliance. These requirements have now been delayed until July 31, 2022. The DPH has a developed a Notice to Providers and a Notice to Patients detailing the various requirements for health care providers under this new law. Mass Senior Care will be sending guidance to members on this issue.