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SCS/SB 1081 - This act amends the Family Care Safety Registry to include protections for the developmentally disabled and requires the registry to contain information on mental health workers. This act also adds direct care staff from the Division of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MRDD) community programs to the list of health care and mental health providers who are required to report suspected cases abuse of a patient, resident, or client of a mental health facility. The Department of Mental Health shall conduct such abuse and neglect investigations. All group homes and mental retardation facilities shall be subject to all applicable federal and state laws, regulations and monitoring. All MRDD community providers shall be subject to the same training requirements established for state mental health workers with comparable positions in public group homes and mental health facilities. In addition, any employee, including supervisory personnel, of a group home or mental retardation facility who has been placed on the department's disqualification registry due to a substantiated finding of abuse or neglect shall be terminated. The facilities or homes are also required to report staff turnover to the Department of Mental Health and the General Assembly. The Department of Mental Health shall not transfer any person to any group home or mental retardation facility that has received a notice of noncompliance, until there is an approved plan of correction. This act also provides that beginning July 1, 2008, each Intermediate Care Facilities-Mentally Retarded Facilities (ICF-MR) in this state must pay, in addition to all other fees or taxes required by law, a ICF-MR provider reimbursement based on a formula set forth in rules promulgated by the Department of Social Services. The provisions relating to the provider reimbursement allowance shall expire on June, 30, 2009. There is an emergency clause for the ICF-MR provider reimbursement provision. ADRIANE CROUSE
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