Pennsylvania lawmakers hear push to modernize Older Adults Protective Services Act, expand bank ‘report-and-hold’ powers and ease background-check burdens for a

Harrisburg — Lawmakers on the House Aging and Older Adult Services Committee heard bipartisan testimony urging a comprehensive rewrite of Pennsylvania’s Older Adults Protective Services Act (Act 79 of 1987) to fix a Commonwealth Court ruling, broaden mandatory reporting, and add tools to prevent financial exploitation of seniors.

Advocates said the modernization should include a narrowly drawn “report-and-hold” mechanism allowing financial institutions to delay suspicious transactions briefly while protective-services workers and law enforcement investigate, along with stronger information‑sharing and training for banks, care providers and older adults.

AARP Pennsylvania state advocacy director Theresa Osborne told the committee that parts of chapter 5 of OPSA were found unconstitutional on Dec. 30, 2015, and that “the debate and discussion has to end” so the General Assembly can craft a durable fix. “The North Star has been that the original intent of Act 79 of 1987 … is to ensure that older Pennsylvanians, those aged 60 years of age and older, who are at imminent risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or abandonment, have access to and be provided with services necessary to protect their health, safety, and welfare,” Osborne said.

Osborne, representing AARP Pennsylvania (which she said speaks for more than 5,000,000 Pennsylvanians age 50+), emphasized the scale and evolving nature of financial scams and recommended Pennsylvania adopt a model “report-and-hold” statute like the Senior Safe/Senior Model Act adopted in many states. She also urged adoption of Uniform Law Commission standards for power of attorney and guardianship to curb fraud across state lines.

Cody Jones, senior director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Home Care Association, supported OPSA’s protective goals but warned that proposed background‑check requirements — especially expanded FBI fingerprinting — could worsen an existing workforce crisis in home care. Jones said the industry supports roughly 290,000 direct‑care workers, serves about 440,000 Pennsylvanians, and faces a roughly 79% turnover rate; he estimated that meeting certain proposed FBI fingerprint rules could create about 230,000 additional clearances annually and that appointment wait times at Identigo sites sometimes exceed two weeks.

“Any increase in costs, such as those being contemplated with FBI fingerprints, should be carefully considered,” Jones told the committee, citing an estimated per‑check cost of about $25.25 and noting that Pennsylvania’s Medicaid reimbursement for personal assistance averages about $20.63 an hour — among the lowest in contiguous states.

Dauphin County Senior Deputy District Attorney Chelsea Robbins described launching a multidisciplinary investigative team (MDIT) and urged expansion of mandated reporters to mirror child‑abuse reporting systems. “I really think that we’re dealing with a situation here, where we see the protections that we put in place for children. I don’t know why we’re not doing the same for older adults,” Robbins said, calling for a single reporting/referral system and clearer rules on who receives reports and how information is shared across agencies.

Committee members pressed witnesses on implementation details. Representative Kosarowski asked what training bank tellers and other front‑line workers need; Osborne said banks already receive suspicious‑activity training but argued that a statutory report‑and‑hold framework would give tellers legal cover and give protective‑services workers time to investigate. Representative Mike Jones and others asked whether a hold would ever permanently prevent a competent adult from spending personal funds; witnesses said that if an older adult is of sound mind, the act’s current tools limit intervention to education and casework, while diminished capacity findings can trigger protective measures under OPSA.

Panelists and members discussed several specific policy and implementation options: statutory time limits for holds (model laws vary, with suggested windows such as 15–25 days), thresholds for wire transfers that would trigger review, grandfathering of currently employed caregivers to avoid disrupting care, reciprocity or data‑sharing to avoid duplicate fingerprinting checks, and use of FBI programs such as Rap Back to reduce repeated background‑check burden.

Witnesses urged stronger outreach and training for older adults and their families, more frequent “scam‑jam” community events, and collaborative campaigns involving Area Agencies on Aging. Osborne noted that Pennsylvania’s system relies on 52 Area Agencies on Aging serving the state’s 67 counties and said a culture of reporting is needed alongside legal tools.

The hearing did not include formal votes. Committee chairs said they intend to continue bipartisan work with stakeholders and bring banking and other experts to future meetings to drill into operational questions.

The session concluded with members thanking witnesses and promising further collaboration as the committee drafts legislative language.