Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law HB 2293, a bill establishing registration and oversight of contract health care services agencies. The law applies to temporary health care services agencies that provide employees to assisted living communities, personal care homes, and nursing homes.

Among other things, the new law requires covered agencies to register with the state; pay an annual registration fee; and provide health care facilities with documentation that any personnel assigned to the facility meets all licensing, certification, training, and continuing education standards. The bill also eliminates the use of noncompete agreements by both the health care services agency and the health care facility.

The original version of the bill, which was introduced in January during the surge of the Covid-19 omicron variant, contained language that would have capped what a health care services agency could charge a health care facility at 150% of the average rate for the service as determined by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Health care services agencies would have also been required to file annual cost reports with the department. ASA, working with its lobbyist Emerald Strategies, was successful in getting those provisions stripped from the bill.

Proponents of the legislation have vowed to continue to push for rate caps in future legislation, which ASA would vigorously oppose.