Grassley Welcomes CMS Action Following His Decades-Long Push to Increase Nursing Home Transparency

 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today released the following statement after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule implementing a Grassley-led initiative, signed into law in 2010, requiring nursing homes to disclose to CMS its ownership and management structure.

“For too long, our nation’s nursing home system has lacked critical federal policies to protect our loved ones and seniors at a time when they can’t always advocate for themselves. This final rule will bring long overdue transparency and accountability. After passing a law 13 years ago to set this rule in motion, I’m glad to see CMS has at last stepped up to the plate and finalized it. Seniors should never have had to wait this long for Washington bureaucrats to act.

“Every American deserves dignified treatment and the highest quality care. Today’s rule is a major step toward securing that objective for more of our nation’s seniors. I’ll be closely reviewing this rule and look forward to continuing to work with CMS to ensure strengthened accountability for nursing home owners.”

History

As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee in 2007, Grassley began conducting oversight on the impacts of private equity, real estate investment trusts and related party transactions in nursing homes. His leadership resulted in a law requiring nursing homes to disclose to CMS all individuals and entities with control, offering administrative services or holding property leases at their facilities. The law required CMS finalize a rule within two years of passage. Although CMS published a proposed rule in May 2011, it slow-walked the rule’s implementation. In March 2023, Grassley decried CMS’s bureaucratic delay and urged the agency to “follow through and finalize CMS’s long overdue proposed rule.”