Page:Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion Co. v. Talevski.pdf/16

12 FNHRA is largely composed of a litany of statutory requirements that Congress laid out for Medicaid-participant States and “nursing facilities.” §1396a(a)(28). Those include “[r]equirements relating to residents’ rights,” §1396r(c) (boldface deleted), two of which Talevski’s complaint invoked.

The first requires nursing facilities to “protect and promote” residents’ “right to be free from … any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms.” §1396r(c)(1)(A)(ii) (referred to herein as “the unnecessary-restraint provision”). The second appears in a subparagraph concerning “[t]ransfer and discharge rights,” §1396r(c)(2)(A) (boldface deleted), and tells nursing facilities that they “must not transfer or discharge [a] resident” unless certain enumerated preconditions, including advance notice of such a transfer or discharge, are met. E.g., §§§ [sic]1396r(c)(2)(A)–(B) (referred to herein as “the predischarge-notice provision”).

As for enforcement, like other aspects of Medicaid, the FNHRA anticipates “cooperative federalism”—i.e., federal and state actors working together—to carry out the statute’s aims. Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Family Servs. v. Blumer, 534 U. S. 473, 495 (2002). Thus, qualifying State Medicaid plans, which are approved by the Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS Secretary), §1396a(b), must include provisions that relate to