The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has just issued a
final rule prohibiting ALL federally funded nursing homes from using forced
arbitration agreements against their residents.
This is in large part due to the coordinated efforts of the American Academy of Justice. As a direct result of this campaign, the rule
was dramatically improved from its original version, which would have made legal
outcomes worse for many nursing home residents by allowing nursing homes to
continue to use pre-dispute arbitration agreements if certain conditions were
met.
In part the rule says:
Binding Arbitration Agreements: We are requiring that
facilities must not enter into an agreement for binding arbitration with a
resident or their representative until after a dispute arises between the
parties. Thus, we are prohibiting the use of pre-dispute binding arbitration
agreements.A copy of the final rule can be found at the link below.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-23503.pdf
