Protecting Residents with Oversight, Transparency, and Enforcement for Compassionate Treatment in Long Term Care Facilities Act or the PROTECT Long Term Care Facilities Act

This bill establishes a series of requirements for Medicare skilled nursing facilities and Medicaid nursing facilities during declared emergencies relating to infectious disease outbreaks.

Specifically, the bill provides statutory authority for certain COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) reporting requirements and requires facilities to report similar information with respect to any infectious disease outbreak that results in a state or national emergency. The bill requires compliance surveys to be conducted in accordance with a specified schedule during such outbreaks and subjects facilities to civil penalties for outbreak-specific violations, as determined under criteria from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The bill also provides funds for state survey agencies to conduct related investigations.