This Florida Senior Living Association's Administrative Rule Review reports on recently proposed regulatory changes affecting Florida’s ALFs as a service to FSLA members. You can find more information regarding AHCA's overall rulemaking efforts here.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On Tuesday, December, 20, 2022, FSLA provided AHCA with our written comments and side-by-side comparison of AHCA's proposed changes to Rule 59A-36.019, F.A.C., Emergency Management (a/k/a the CEMP rule).

FSLA's verbal comments, provided by Jason Hand, Vice President of Public Policy & Legal Affairs, were covered extensively by McKnights Senior Living and Florida Politics.

In short, FSLA has raised concerns that AHCA's proposed changes could have greater impacts than anticipated, including on our own businesses operations, our staff, our residents, emergency management operations, other communities we may evacuate to, companies that provide shelter, transportation, fuel, repairs, communications, etc.

As a result, FSLA asked AHCA to sit down with FSLA, emergency management and other stakeholders and work together on these CEMP updates so the resulting changes are comprehensively meaningful for all. Maintaining Florida’s reputation of excellence in emergency management is critical, and we all need to work together to get it right.

Hand stated in part that "Everyone is aware of ALF's duty to protect residents and staff during emergencies; however, these proposed changes also result in requiring ALFs to include far more information than should be included in an emergency management plan. If the industry doesn't work together to ensure these updates are measured and meaningful, this may be one more item that is added to the list of unnecessarily burdensome regulations on ALFs."

AHCA has indicated that it will consider holding additional workshops with interested stakeholders. FSLA plans to continue to monitor and participate in these workshops on behalf of our assisted living industry, and will keep you informed of key developments! 

Please contact Jason Hand, FSLA's Vice President of Public Policy & Legal Affairs, for more information!