Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act

Bill: 110-s-1577
Sponsor: Sen. Kohl, Herb [D-WI]
Introduced: 2007-06-07 in the Senate
Policy area: Health
Subjects: Crime and Law Enforcement
Criminal justice information
Data banks
Elder abuse
Employee selection
Federal-state relations
Fingerprints
Government Operations and Politics
Identification of criminals
Labor and Employment
Long-term care
Medicaid
Medical personnel
Medicare
Nursing homes
Personnel records
Science, Technology, Communications
Social Welfare

Summary:
action_date: 2007-06-07
text: 
Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007 - Amends the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 to provide for nationwide expansion of the pilot program for national and state background checks on direct patient access employees of long-term care facilities or providers. 
 
Amends titles XVIII (Medicare) and XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act to: (1) require screening, including national criminal history background checks, of direct patient access employees of skilled nursing facilities, nursing facilities, and other long-term care facilities and providers; and (2) prohibit hiring of abusive workers. 
 
Requires the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to ensure that the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System of the FBI has the capacity to store and retrieve fingerprints from its database. 
 
Provides that, in the case where a direct patient access employee is convicted of a crime following the initial national criminal history background check, and the employee's fingerprint matches the prints on file with the FBI, the FBI shall inform the state law enforcement department in order for the state to inform the skilled nursing facility, nursing facility, or long-term care facility or provider of such conviction.

action_date: 2008-09-22
text: 
Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act - (Sec. 3) Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a program to identify efficient, effective, and economical procedures for long-term care (LTC) facilities or providers to conduct background checks on prospective direct patient access employees on a nationwide basis. 
 
(Sec. 4) Amends title XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act to provide for mandatory state use of the National Correct Coding Initiative administered by the Secretary to promote correct coding and to control improper coding leading to inappropriate payment.
 
Directs the Secretary to: (1) identify those methodologies of the National Correct Coding Initiative compatible to Medicaid claims; (2) identify those methodologies that should be incorporated into Medicaid claims with respect to items or services for which no national correct coding methodologies have been established under such Initiative; and (3) notify states of such methodologies and how they are to incorporate them into Medicaid claims.
 
(Sec. 5) Amends title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act, as amended by the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, to extend through FY2017 and increase funding for the Medicare Improvement Fund. 


Legislative actions:
action_date: 2008-09-22
text: Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 1035.
action_date: 2008-09-22
text: Committee on Finance. Reported by Senator Baucus with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and an amendment to the title. With written report No. 110-474.
action_date: 2008-09-22
text: Committee on Finance. Reported by Senator Baucus with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and an amendment to the title. With written report No. 110-474.
action_date: 2008-09-10
text: Committee on Finance. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
action_date: 2007-06-07
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (text of measure as introduced: CR S7354-7358)
action_date: 2007-06-07
text: Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S7353-7354)
action_date: 2007-06-07
text: Introduced in Senate