"Community Care Options for Older Adults Act", providing a comprehensive system for the care of seniors ARTICLE 1 COMMUNITY ACCESS AND SUPPORTS FOR SENIORSModifying the medical assistance (MA) eligibility requirement relating to income for aged, blind or disabled persons not receiving supplemental security income (SSI) program payments; increasing the general assistance (GA) standard of assistance by the maximum allotment authorized by the federal food stamp program for shelter needy applicants for or recipients of benefits from the alternative care or elderly waiver programs, defining shelter needy; creating the community services development grants program under the administration of the commissioner of human services for the establishment of new older adult services as alternatives to nursing facility care, specifying eligibility, a match requirement and a maximum grant amount; requiring the commissioner to establish a transition planning grant program to assist eligible nursing homes in developing strategic plans to meet the older adult service needs of the community, specifying certain strategic plan content requirements, providing for allocation of the grants and requiring the commissioner to evaluate the effectiveness of the program; requiring the commissioner to establish a medical assistance pilot project on senior citizens to study the impact on public expenditures of converting the delivery of housing, supportive services and health care for seniors into a flexible voucher program and to provide an alternative method of purchasing services based on consumer choice, requiring the commissioner to apply for necessary federal waivers to implement the project and to collaborate with participating communities in preparing and issuing annual reports to the legislature on the project, project sunset provision; requiring and providing for the board on aging to develop a senior information source to provide free telephone and Internet information and assistance service for seniors and families of seniors, specifying certain information source, proposal, fiscal, local match and evaluation requirements; requiring the commissioner of health in consultation with the commissioner of human services to by a certain date implement mechanisms to monitor and analyze the distribution of older adult services in the different geographic areas of the state, specifying certain study requirements and requiring annual reports to the legislature; requiring the commissioners to identify and designate specific geographic areas as critical access service sites, defining critical access service site and specifying certain duties of the commissioners ARTICLE 2 CAREGIVER SUPPORTGranting eligibility for state paid hospital, medical and dental benefits to employees of licensed nursing facilities; excluding certain wage increases mandated by the legislature and received by long term care workers from inclusion in annual income for child care assistance eligibility determination purposes; expanding background studies requirements to individuals employed by temporary employment agencies providing services in health care facilities under contract with registered temporary employment agencies and controlling persons of temporary agencies, requiring employment agencies subject to registration requirements to maintain records verifying compliance with the background study requirements; extending the deadline for commissioner of health application for a federal waiver to implement the program of employing resident attendants to assist with eating and drinking activities in nursing homes and expanding the definition of resident attendant to individuals assisting with transporting activities; requiring and providing for the registration of temporary employment agencies serving the health care industry with the commissioner of health, requiring the commissioner to establish forms and procedures for annual registration and to set a registration fee and granting the commissioner certain enforcement authority; specifying certain background study requirements and certain information to be provided by the agencies to the commissioner; requiring and providing for written contracts between the agencies and the facilities to be served, specifying certain contract content and maintenance requirements; specifying certain referral authority of the commissioner upon receipt of information indicating the failure of an agency to comply with legal requirements; requiring the department of human services to establish maximum payment rates for services provided by the agencies; requiring the commissioner of health to coordinate loan forgiveness, grant, tuition waiver and training programs available to licensed and unlicensed health care workers pledging to work in long term health care settings, to serve as a clearinghouse on available programs and to establish a health care worker tuition payback program ARTICLE 3 PAYMENT AND QUALITY SYSTEM REFORMEstablishing a quality and payment review commission to review long term care payment policies and submit financial and quality assurance recommendations and reports to the legislature, specifying membership requirements and powers and duties, requiring recommendations to the legislature by a certain date on a new operating payment system for nursing facilities receiving medical assistance (MA) payments, specifying certain system component requirements; requiring and providing for commissioner of human services operating payment rate adjustments for nursing facilities participating in the contractual alternative payment demonstration project under medical assistance, specifying certain calculation requirements, requiring use of part of the increase for employee compensation; providing for additional increases for low rate facilities; authorizing the commissioner to contract with nursing facilities eligible to receive medical assistance payments to provide services to ventilator dependents persons according to certain specified criteria, authorizing negotiation of an operating cost payment rate adjustment for the facilities; specifying certain replacement cost new per bed limits for licensed beds, requiring annual adjustments; requiring the commissioner to increase the rental factor, prescribing an occupancy factor and providing for certain allowances, debts and interest expenses and requiring the commissioner to establish alternate payment rates for certain nursing facilities; establishing the long term care enhancement fund for deposit of unspent and unencumbered state general fund appropriations for long term care; requiring state agencies proposing new regulations or new interpretations of existing regulations relating to housing and service delivery for older adults to submit copies of proposed changes to the quality and payment review commission for a regulatory financial impact statement and approval ARTICLE 4 INFRASTRUCTURE CONVERSIONIncreasing the dollar limit for construction projects under the nursing home bed moratorium and expanding the definition of project construction costs to new technology implemented as part of the project, defining technology; eliminating the provision prohibiting the carryforward of nursing home bed moratorium exception expenditures into the following biennium; expanding the criteria for review of moratorium exception proposals to the extent of the increase in the number of private or single room beds; eliminating the provision exempting nursing facilities under the medical assistance (MA) contractual alternative payment demonstration project from moratorium requirements and providing for reimbursement for construction projects for alternative payment system nursing facilities; requiring the commissioner of human services to apply for necessary waivers of federal medicaid regulations or change in state plan to allow the state to cover the payment for private or single rooms for medical assistance recipients and requiring the commissioner to use a certain definition of capacity days to adjust nursing facility property rates; establishing the nursing home facility conversion program and account to be administered by the commissioner of the housing finance agency (HFA) for the conversion of nursing home facilities to assisted living facilities or other affordable housing for seniors, specifying facility eligibility requirements and allocation criteria, prohibiting the approval of funds for projects increasing medical assistance costs ARTICLE 5 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT Requiring and providing for the commissioner of health to implement alternative procedures for the nursing home survey process, specifying certain survey interval requirements and requiring the commissioner to develop a process for identifying the survey cycles for skilled nursing facilities based on the compliance history of the facility, requiring public notice of the classification process and identification of the selected survey cycles for each facility, specifying certain monitoring requirements, requiring the commissioner to establish a process for surveying and monitoring certain facilities, prohibiting survey agency funding reductions upon implementation of the alternative survey process and requiring the commissioner to expand survey agency ability to conduct training and educational efforts for skilled nursing facilities and the public and to develop an alternative survey process evaluation procedure; requiring the commissioner to establish a long term care grant program for the demonstration of best practices and innovations for long term care service delivery and housing, specifying eligibility requirements and providing for the awarding of grants ARTICLE 6 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITYExpanding the definition of eligible person under the public employees group long term care insurance program; requiring the commissioners of human services and commerce to establish the Minnesota partnership for long term care program to provide for the financing of long term care through a combination of private insurance and medical assistance (MA), specifying eligibility requirements and providing for medical assistance eligibility determination by the commissioner of human services; requiring the commissioner to seek appropriate amendments to the medical assistance state plan and necessary federal waivers to implement the program and specifying certain partnership policy requirements; increasing the maximum income tax credit for long term care insurance premiumsARTICLE 7 MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONSExtending the expiration date of a certain provision requiring frequent checking of incontinent nursing facility residents; repealing certain existing nursing facility medical assistance (MA) reimbursement provisions ARTICLE 8 APPROPRIATIONSAppropriating money to the commissioner of human services for community services development and transition grants, for administration of the medical assistance (MA) pilot project, for ventilator dependent persons rate negotiations, for the nursing home moratorium exception process and for the long term care partnership program federal waiver, to the board on aging for development and operation of the senior information source, to the commissioner of health for identification of critical access service sites, for coordination of tuition assistance programs, for implementation of the loan forgiveness program and the alternative survey schedule, for provider education and for innovations in quality demonstration grants, to the quality and payment review commission for the time study, to the housing finance agency (HFA) for administration of the nursing home conversion program and to the commissioner of employee relations (DOER) for promoting the expansion of the state long term care insurance program (ra)