Nursing Home Enforcement Law

The Role of California's Department of Health Services (DHS)

The California Department of Health Services, Licensing and Certification Division (L&C), is responsible for licensing nursing homes, for routine inspections, and complaint investigations, and -- through its enforcement efforts -- for ensuring compliance with state and federal laws and regulations.

 

DHS receives part of its funding from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), to conduct onsite inspections of those facilities that participate in the Medicare and/or Medicaid (Medi-Cal) programs. For those facilities, in addition to state enforcement remedies, DHS may recommend sanctions available through the CMS programs against facilities that violate the laws.

The Role of CMS

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), is the federal agency responsible for overseeing certification of nursing homes that participate in the Medicare and/or Medicaid (Medi-Cal), for defining conditions of participation and for imposing sanctions against those facilities that fail to meet the requirements. In California, CMS contracts with with DHS to perform certification surveys (inspections) of nursing homes. Note that CMS maintains a website with information on all nursing homes in the United States that are certified to accept Medicare and/or Medicaid (see "Next Steps" for a link to the CMS NursingHomeCompare website).

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