New regs for Friday: Nursing homes, stoves, sick days, pig feed

Friday’s edition of the Federal Register contains new requirements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for long-term care facilities, more time for the public to comment on the Energy Department’s conservation standards for stoves, and a final rule from the Labor Department expanding paid leave to federal contractors.

Here’s what to look for:

Long-term care: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized new requirements that long-term care facilities must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. 

{mosads}The final rules include a provision prohibiting facilities from using forced arbitration clauses in resident contracts. The language, often slipped into the fine print, forces residents to settle disputes privately with an arbitrator rather than through the courts.

Facilities under the rule must also provide each resident with a nourishing, palatable, well-balanced diet and develop and implement a baseline care plan for each resident within the first 48 hours after they’ve been admitted to a facility.

The rule is expected to cost facilities about $831 million in the first year and $736 million a year after that. Individual facilities will spend an estimated $62,900 complying with the rule in the first year.

The CMS said it’s unable to quantify the benefits of the final rule, but expects the new efficiencies and flexibilities created to reduce avoidable hospital re-admissions, increase the rate of improvement in quality throughout facilities and create positive business benefits.

The rule will take effect Nov. 28.

Stoves: The Energy Department is giving the public more time to comment on its proposed energy conservation standards for household stoves.

Since manufacturers are not currently conducting energy tests on conventional cooking products, the Association of Home Appliance Manufactures asked for more time to test product lines, evaluate the proposed test procedures and provide substantive comments on the proposed standards.

The agency will accept public comments, originally due Oct. 3, through Nov. 2.

Sick days: The Labor Department has finalized its rule to give 1.15 million people working on federal contracts the ability to earn paid sick leave.

Under the rule, workers on a federal contract can earn on hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, for up to 56 hours, or 7 days, of paid leave per year.

The Labor Departments is estimating direct costs for employers to reach $27.3 million per year for the first 10 years.

The rule will take effect in 60 days.

Pig feed: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will release a final rule to allow animal food producers to use safe amounts of sodium formate to lower the pH of pig feed.

The chemical company BASF Corp. petitioned the agency for the rule-making and after reviewing the data FDA found it was safe to add sodium formate as an acidifying agent to swine feeds.

The rule will take effect immediately.