Sponsors (7)
Requires covered long-term and post-acute facilities to run an essential caregivers program allowing up to two designated in-person caregivers during visitation suspensions, with prioritized complaint resolution.
The bill secures in-person essential caregiver access and faster enforcement to reduce isolation and protect residents' rights, but increases costs and may constrain facility flexibility during severe outbreaks, creating a trade-off between resident social/rights protections and emergency infection-control and administrative burdens.
Residents of long-term care facilities (including seniors and people with disabilities) keep in-person access to up to two designated essential caregivers during visitation suspensions, preserving social support, oversight, and reducing isolation.
Cognitively impaired residents can have a representative select essential caregivers on their behalf, protecting advocacy, consent rights, and continuity of supportive relationships for those who cannot choose for themselves.
Facilities must apply the same infection-control practices to essential caregivers as to staff (no more restrictive), reducing arbitrary barriers to visitation while keeping infection-control standards consistent.
Limiting the applicability of certain 1135 waivers and constraining visitation denials reduces facility flexibility during severe outbreaks and could increase infection risk if emergency operational levers are constrained.
Facilities and taxpayers may incur additional operational costs to screen, manage, and monitor essential caregivers, increasing administrative burden on providers and potentially public expenses.
The three-day complaint resolution timeline could strain state survey agencies and prompt provisional actions before full investigations are complete, creating administrative pressure and possible unfair remedies for providers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Official title: To amend titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act to require certain facilities to permit visits from an essential caregiver during certain periods.
Introduced July 13, 2026 by Claudia Tenney · Last progress July 13, 2026
Requires nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities to run an "essential caregivers" program whenever regular visitation is suspended. Each resident may designate up to two essential caregivers who have in-person access (including at end of life), must follow facility safety protocols no stricter than staff, and facilities and state survey agencies must prioritize complaints about caregiver access. Applies to facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid by amending federal provider rules, limits the use of certain waiver authorities, directs HHS to issue implementing regulations within 18 months, and becomes effective one year after enactment. No new funding is provided in the text; states and facilities must implement the program under existing authorities and oversight timelines are tightened for complaints.