31-7-2.1. Rules and regulations; availability of reports of cited deficiencies; disclosure of survey worksheets and documents.

The department shall adopt and promulgate such reasonable rules and regulations which in its judgment are necessary to protect the health and lives of patients and shall prescribe and set out the kind and quality of building, equipment, facilities, and institutional services which institutions shall have and use in order to properly care for their patients. Such rules and regulations shall include detailed quality standards for specific clinical services which shall be required to be met by an institution prior to offering the particular service. Such rules and regulations shall require that all nursing homes annually offer unless contraindicated, contingent on availability, an influenza virus vaccine to all medicare and Medicaid-eligible patients and private-pay patients in their facilities, in accordance with the rules and regulations established pursuant to this subsection. Such rules and regulations shall also require that all nursing homes annually offer unless contraindicated, contingent on availability, a pneumococcal bacteria vaccine to all medicare-eligible patients and all private-pay patients, 65 years of age or older, in their facilities, in accordance with the rules and regulations established pursuant to this subsection.#

The department shall compile and distribute, upon request, to interested persons a monthly list of those nursing homes and intermediate care homes surveyed, inspected, or investigated during the month, indicating each facility for which deficiencies have been cited by the department, and indicating where reports of the cited deficiencies and information regarding any sanctions imposed can be obtained. The department shall also make available the survey reports upon written request.#

Except as provided in Code Sections 31-8-86 and 31-5-5, all worksheets or documents prepared or compiled by department surveyors in the course of nursing home surveys shall be provided upon written request to a nursing home which has received notice of intent to impose a remedy or sanction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1396r or Code Section 31-2-8; provided, however, that the names of residents and any other information that would reveal the identities of residents and the content of resident interviews shall not be disclosed except as provided in survey protocols of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The department may charge a reasonable reproduction fee as provided in Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50.#