Regulatory Committee Continues Evaluation of the Health Facility Administrators

The Regulatory Occupations Evaluation Committee (ROEC) met on April 20, 2011 to continue its evaluation of the Health Facility Administrators Board (HFAB), which issues professional licenses to Indiana Health Facility and Residential Care Administrators. ROEC was formed due to a law passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 2010 that required an evaluation of the need for and function of every professional licensing agency administered by the State of Indiana.

At the most recent ROEC meeting, the committee received testimony and recommendations from the Chair of the HFAB, Shelly Rauch who also is a licensed administrator. After discussing with the ROEC members the process by which the HFAB evaluates administrator's performance via CEU audits and examination of Immediate Jeopardy/Sub-standard Quality Care findings from state and federal facility surveys, Mrs. Rauch made several recommendations to the ROEC to improve the HFAB's oversight of Indiana's administrators. The recommendations included:

• Designate a compliance officer to the HFAB who would identify and act upon issues identified in state and federal facility surveys 
• Create a compliance fund, funded by an add-on to the HFA licensure fee, in order to provide the HFAB additional resources to provide education, licensee retraining and to fund the recommended compliance officer 
•  The HFAB is only allocated $15,143 per year to operate even though it generates nearly $80,000 in licensure fees each year
• Require all administrators to report any change of employment to the HFAB in order to monitor excessive employment changes which may indicate poor performance. 
• Study the regulatory structure regarding the Administrator in Training program to remove barriers of entry into the profession.

After receiving the recommendations, the ROEC members engaged in limited discussion, most of which focused upon the link between state and federal facility surveys and administrator performance. Several questions were asked regarding the role of the Indiana State Department of Health in evaluating administrators and whether that department should be more involved.

The next step in the ROEC's evaluation of the HFAB will the writing of a report containing final recommendations of the ROEC as to what changes, if any, should be made to the HFAB in order to further protect Indiana consumers. This final report will be forwarded by the ROEC to the legislature's Health Finance Commission for their review during the summer of 2011.