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CMS Prohibits Pre-Dispute Arbitration in Newly Released Federal Nursing Home Regulations

September 30, 2016

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has just released a comprehensive revision of federal nursing facility regulations.   The regulations and explanatory material (over 700 pages total) are available here. Currently, many nursing facility admission agreements include provisions obligating the resident to have disputes adjudicated through private arbitration.  Such “pre-dispute” arbitration agreements now will be prohibited.  Arbitration agreements will be allowed only when the events at issue occurred before the arbitration agreement was signed.

The prohibition of such agreements comes after Consumer Voice's efforts to urge CMS to include such a provision.

For more information, read the New York Times article.  For Consumer Voice's breakdown of other provisions included in the nursing home regulations, click here.

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