WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 — Lawmakers in two hearings on Thursday proposed ways to force nursing homes to provide more details about ownership and to hold those owners more accountable when problems emerge.
The hearings were prompted in part by concerns that quality at nursing homes was declining as large chains were acquired by private investment groups.
Members of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and the Senate Special Committee on Aging proposed measures to require nursing homes to disclose ownership and to require regulators to release information about poorly managed homes.
Kerry N. Weems, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes, offered several initiatives to improve oversight. His suggestions included releasing the so-called special focus facility list, which identifies homes that regulators consider among the nation’s worst. That list, which will be released Dec. 1, has not been public.