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DHHS proposes home‑health rule changes to align state requirements with federal certification
Summary
The Department of Health and Human Services presented rule amendments that remove fixed review intervals for agency policies and for personnel competency records to align state licensing with federal certification requirements.
The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services presented proposed amendments to Home Health Agency rules that remove certain fixed timeframes for policy review and personnel documentation in order to align state licensing expectations with federal certification standards.
Bridget Weidner, director of the DHHS health facilities unit, told the committee that the proposed amendments to North Dakota Administrative Code chapter 33‑3‑10.1 are ‘‘not related to change in state law’’ or to changes in federal statute or regulation. She said the department uses direct and electronic mail and county newspapers to notify interested persons and held a public hearing in Bismarck on June 12, 2025. The record remained open until June 23; three people attended the hearing and no written comments were submitted.
Weidner said the amendments remove a requirement that home‑health agency policies and procedures be reviewed ‘‘at least every 3 years’’ and remove a fixed two‑year minimum for documentation of competency evaluations in personnel files. She said the changes were requested by industry stakeholders who found the state licensing timeframes were sometimes inconsistent with federal certification requirements; the department removed the fixed timeframes to ‘‘align more with the federal home health requirements.’’
The department reported the non‑staff cost of notice and rule development as $2,409.93 and said the amendments were not adopted as emergency rules and are not expected to have more than a minimal fiscal impact on the regulated community.
Why it matters: removing overlapping or conflicting timeframes is intended to reduce regulatory confusion for licensed and certified home‑health agencies that must sometimes follow both state licensing and federal certification rules.
Weidner said the changes decrease regulatory requirements and provided attached regulatory and small‑entity analyses to the committee; the department did not receive a request for a regulatory analysis from the governor or a legislator.
