Regulation Updates

September 7, 2023

906 KAR 1:190
Summary: Kentucky National Background Check Program (NBCP). This regulation establishes procedures and requirements for implementation of the cabinet’s comprehensive state and national background check program for voluntarily participating long-term care entities. This amendment increases the maximum fee for the state and FBI fingerprint check by up to $5 per check to offset rate increases from the commonwealth’s contracted vendor. The contractor’s current rate increase of $2 per check will be added to the current fee of $25, resulting in a new fee of $27 per check. The fee charged will not exceed actual costs charged to the cabinet.

June 8, 2023

902 KAR 20:300
Summary: In accordance with KRS 194A.705(2)(c) as amended by SB 110, this amendment requires nursing facilities to ensure that any unlicensed staff who administer oral or topical medications to residents under the delegation of a nurse be a certified medication aide (CMA) I or a CMA II to administer preloaded injectable insulin.

May 19, 2023

906 KAR 6:080 906 KAR 6:080 Emergency
Summary: This amendment provides the cabinet with a mechanism that will allow a county to alleviate an emergency circumstance without first obtaining a certificate of need if continuous ambulance services have ceased in the area and the county seeks a temporary Class I hardship license from the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services (KBEMS).

May 11, 2023

906 KAR 1:210
Summary: In accordance with the passage of HB 502, this amendment adds definitions for “permanent direct care staff” and “temporary direct care staff”
and exempts the placement of permanent direct care staff from the requirements of this regulation. It is important to note that HB 502 was clean-up legislation intended to exclude health care workers such as international travel nurses whose assignments are generally 24 months or longer from the requirements of KRS 216.718 – 216.728.
Application Report

Mar. 29, 2023

900 KAR 14:010 (ordinary) 900 KAR 14:010E (emergency)
Summary: In accordance with the passage SB 43, this regulation replaces the reference to “an assisted living community, long-term care facility, or state-owned or operated mental or psychiatric hospital” with “a health facility, health service, Medicaid waiver service or psychiatric residential treatment facility,” thereby increasing the number of facilities and programs required to implement essential personal care visitor programs during a period when general visitation is limited or prohibited.

Mar. 23, 2023

902 KAR 55:015 (ordinary) 902 KAR 55:015E (emergency)
Summary: This emergency regulation designates tianeptine as a Schedule I controlled substance. Tianeptine is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and it has no accepted medical use in treatment. The FDA has warned that many companies are illegally marketing and selling products containing tianeptine to the public with unproven beneficial claims. In a 2022 update, the FDA warned consumers that it has identified cases in which people experienced serious harmful effects from abusing or misusing tianeptine by itself or with other drugs. Therefore, inclusion on Kentucky's Schedule I list will help reduce the risk to public health by making it illegal to possess tianeptine.

Mar. 16, 2023

900 KAR 5:020 (ordinary) State Plan
Summary: This amendment is the 2023 Update to the State Health Plan. Like the emergency version, it adds new language to allow acute care hospitals to convert existing acute care beds to psychiatric beds for adult patients if certain conditions are met. In addition, this ordinary amendment deletes outdated language referring to tuberculosis beds; adds language to allow a long-term care pediatric facility to add 50 or fewer beds if certain conditions are met; amends language to allow an acute care hospital, a critical access hospital, or a nursing facility to establish or expand a home health service to provide services exclusively to their patients who require home health services at the time of discharge; deletes the criteria for megavoltage radiation and magnetic resonance imaging, thereby making those services subject to nonsubstantive review; and amends the criteria for ophthalmological ambulatory surgical centers.

900 KAR 5:020E (emergency) State Plan
Summary: This emergency amendment adds new language to allow acute care hospitals to convert existing acute care beds to psychiatric beds for adult patients if certain conditions are met.

900 KAR 6:075E, Certificate of Need nonsubstantive review. (Emergency)
Summary: This emergency amendment grants nonsubstantive review status to certificate of need (CON) applications submitted by licensed hospitals that wish to convert existing acute care beds to psychiatric beds for adult patients under certain conditions and permits such applications to be subject to nonsubstantive review.

900 KAR 6:075, Certificate of Need nonsubstantive review. (Ordinary)
Summary: Like the emergency version, this amendment grants nonsubstantive review status to Certificate of Need (CON) applications submitted by licensed hospitals that wish to convert existing acute care beds to psychiatric beds for adult patients under certain conditions and permits such applications to be subject to nonsubstantive review. This ordinary amendment also grants nonsubstantive review status to: CON applications from accredited hospitals seeking to provide megavoltage radiation therapy; applications to provide positron emission tomography services; applications to provide magnetic resonance imaging services and applications from a hospital or nursing facility proposing to establish or expand a home health service to serve patients discharged from its facility.