CMS has begun an initiative called "Patients Over Paperwork" intended to facilitate its goal of identifying sections of the regulations that providers consider burdensome and make revisions. Consumer Voice has been actively engaging with CMS around its efforts to rollback and weaken the regulations. In addition, CMS has, with urging from the nursing home industry, enacted policies that will weaken the effect of the regulations, such as imposing an 18-month moratorium on enforcement of several provisions and revising how civil money penalties are calculated. Examples of regulatory provisions being targeted for revision by the nursing home industry and CMS include sharing discharge notices with long-term care ombudsmen, requirement for baseline care plans, provisions around responding to grievances, and the requirement that a facility assess staffing levels needed to care for residents.
 
At the same time, CMS has been moving forward with implementing provisions of the 2016 regulations in three phases. These rules contain important updates to the requirements that nursing homes must meet, including in the areas of transfer-discharge, reporting of abuse and neglect, assessment and care planning, and more.
 
The NAELA Foundation Board of Trustees approved a grant of $20,000 to Consumer Voice in support of their funding request. These funds will support advocacy around CMS efforts to roll back and weaken the regulations and oversight of standards and an educational component, the development of short (5-10 min) recorded summaries of select provisions of the regulations that will include an overview of the essential elements of the rule, what the provision means for residents, and ways in which the regulation can be used in the practice of elder law to assist individual clients.