Sponsors (126)
Official title: To direct the Secretary of Labor to issue an occupational safety and health standard that requires covered employers within the health care and social service industries to develop and implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 1, 2025 by Joe Courtney · Last progress April 1, 2025
The bill increases safety for healthcare and long‑term care workers and transparency in workplace violence incidents but imposes significant compliance costs and enforcement risks that may strain smaller providers and could disrupt patient access in some communities.
Healthcare and long‑term care workers (hospital, nursing facility, clinic staff) will be covered by legally required workplace violence prevention programs, including engineering controls, planning, and training, improving on‑the‑job safety.
Patients in hospitals and nursing facilities may experience safer care environments as facilities adopt violence‑reduction policies and staff training.
Employees (healthcare and social service workers) gain explicit protections against retaliation for reporting workplace violence or seeking help, supporting reporting and worker rights.
Hospitals and skilled nursing facilities will incur substantial new compliance costs (planning, training, staffing, engineering controls, recordkeeping), raising operating expenses.
Smaller, rural, or freestanding providers may face disproportionate financial and operational burdens to meet requirements, risking service reductions or closures.
Facilities that fail to comply could face penalties or loss of Medicare participation under HHS remedies, potentially disrupting patient access to care.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Requires Labor to adopt enforceable interim and final workplace violence prevention standards for health care and social service employers and makes hospitals/SNFs comply as a Medicare condition of participation.
Requires the Secretary of Labor to issue an interim final OSHA workplace violence prevention standard for employers in health care, social services, and similar settings within one year, with the interim standard taking effect quickly and remaining in force until a final standard is adopted. The law obligates covered employers to develop and implement comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans and gives the Department of Labor a timetable for a proposed and final standard while providing a limited public-comment period and a compliance-assistance phase. Makes hospitals and skilled nursing facilities that are not covered by OSHA or an approved state plan subject to the new workplace violence prevention standard as a condition of participation in Medicare reimbursement programs, and authorizes remedies for noncompliance; hospitals and nursing facilities must comply beginning one year after issuance of the interim standard.