39-3358. SPECIFIED REMEDIES. (1) The department shall establish at least the following remedies:

(a) Prohibit the facility from admitting residents or prohibit a facility from keeping or admitting residents with a specific diagnosis.

(b) A civil money penalty assessed and collected, with interest, for each day the facility is or was out of compliance with a requirement of this chapter. Funds collected by the department as a result of imposition of such a penalty shall be applied to the protection of the health or property of residents of residential or assisted living facilities that the department finds deficient, including payment for the costs of relocation of residents to other facilities, maintenance of operation of a facility pending correction of deficiencies or closure, and reimbursement of residents for personal funds lost.

(c) The appointment of temporary management to oversee the operation of the facility and to assure the health and safety of the facility’s residents, where there is a need for temporary management while:

(i) There is an orderly closure of the facility.

(ii) Improvements are made in order to bring the facility into compliance with all the requirements of this chapter.

(iii) The temporary management under this clause shall not be terminated until the department has determined that the facility has the management capability to ensure continued compliance with all the requirements of this chapter.

(d) The authority, in the case of an emergency, to summarily suspend the license, to close the facility, and/or to transfer residents in that facility to other facilities.

(2) The department shall also specify criteria as to when and how each of such remedies is to be applied, the amounts of any fines, and the severity of each of these remedies, to be used in the imposition of such remedies. Such criteria shall be designed so as to minimize the time between the identification of violations and final imposition of the remedies and shall provide for the imposition of incrementally more severe fines for repeated or uncorrected deficiencies.

History:

[39-3358, added 1990, ch. 116, sec. 2, p. 258; am. 2000, ch. 274, sec. 43, p. 827.]