Louisiana Nursing Home Regulations

Louisiana licenses its nursing homes and defines a nursing home as an institution which serves two or more people who are not related or married to the operator. The nursing home provides personal care services to individuals who are unable to take care of themselves because of illness. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sets the federal guidelines for the operation of a nursing home.

Resident Rights

• A nursing home is recognized under the Medicare and Medicaid guidelines as a skilled nursing facility or nursing facility that provides long-term care. A resident of a nursing home has his rights protected under federal and state law. He has a right to privacy, to decide if the facility should manage his finances, to choose his physician and participate in his care, visitors and to visit outside of the facility and to share his room with his spouse. He may review his records and he is entitled to receiving communication in a form he can understand. He should receive communication in his foreign language or sign language if needed. The resident has a right to refuse any treatment.

Resident Assessment

• The nursing facility should use a resident assessment instrument (RAI) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the needs of the resident. This process includes observations, discussions with care providers, family members, the resident's physician and consultants outside of the facility. The nursing home must use a state RAI for newly admitted residents. The assessment documents: psychological well-being, dental health, nutrition intake, medications, skin health, cognitive patterns and level of activity. Comprehensive assessments ought to be carried out within 14 days of a new patient admission and 14 days of a resident's change in physical or mental condition. Annual assessments must be conducted 366 days after the final completion of the previous comprehensive assessment.

Quality of Care

• The resident's well-being and functioning should be a priority of the nursing facility and her quality of life maintained within the limits of his participation in her treatment and her own pathology and aging process. This includes patients who are experiencing end-of-life such as renal disease and congestive heart failure. The facility must develop care plans based on a comprehensive assessment that are specific to the resident's needs. A nursing home is in compliance if it can successfully demonstrate it has assessed factors that would put the patient in jeopardy, has put in place interventions that address the resident's needs and incorporates standards of practice, has observed the resident's response to prevention and revised the approaches as needed.