The article below is a top story from this week's ACTION newsletter—Care Providers of Minnesota's weekly newsletter for members. The newsletter focuses on current legislative issues, regulations, long-term care trends, and other Association news. Each Thursday evening, it is delivered to your inbox. To sign up for ACTION, contact Lisa Foss Olson (952-851-2483). To learn more about membership, visit our Become a Member page.
HWS & home care providers asked to respond to MDH survey
By Jill Schewe | July 10, 2020 | Assisted living & home care providers
Last week, our housing with services (HWS) members received a surprise email from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) that looked something like this:
Dear Provider:
In March, we notified you of new legislation that created an assisted living licensure in Minnesota. We are reaching out again to ask you to complete a survey on your organization's intent to apply for an assisted living facility license. This survey will help us get you the information you will need to transition to the new assisted living licensure.
If the authorized agent for your organization has changed please use this https://www.health.state.mn.us/facilities/regulation/homecare/docs/providers/hcalpchg.pdf to update your information, and return back to the Home Care and Assisted Living Program. Reply and provide the updated contact information, including the person's name and email address.
The survey will be open from July 2nd, 2020 to July 16th, 2020. For security purposes you will only have access to the survey during that time. Please return to your account after that date to access your license renewal application or other information as needed.
To access this survey, please go to the website: XXX
Regards,
If you still have questions after reading these materials, please feel free to email the MDH Health Regulation Division's Assisted Living Licensure Team at health.assistedliving@state.mn.us or call us at (651) 539-3049 or toll-free at 1 (844) 926-1061.
Care Providers of Minnesota staff reached out to MDH staff to ask them about this survey. The survey is not part of HWS renewals or the provider readiness communications that have been discussed. The survey has been sent to HWS providers last week and will be sent to home care providers this week. This survey is intended to help MDH with planning for the transition of current providers choosing to obtain an assisted living facility license. Currently there are over 1,500 HWS registered entities out there, and they want to know which ones will make the conversion over to assisted living licensure, and they want to make sure they have all the right contact info in their files when the time comes.
MDH does intend to issue a second brief survey within the next month asking both HWS and home care providers about their current baseline costs to help them conduct a broader cost analysis of regulations in both statute and those expected to be in the rule.
Jill Schewe | Director of Assisted Living, Housing & Home Care | jschewe@careproviders.org | 952-851-2484