Senate File 94 proposal would add nursing to Integrated Community Supports; bill laid over

Senator Steve Hoffman asked the Senate Human Services Committee to lay over Senate File 94, a bill that would add reimbursement for assessed nursing services to the Integrated Community Supports framework used for people on several disability waivers.

The bill addresses a gap identified after Minnesota transitioned many customized living services to ICS. Supporters, including Josh Berg of Accessible Space and Colby Miller, a site nurse, said required nursing tasks—clinical monitoring after hospital stays, training staff to manage ostomies and catheters, wound care, medication monitoring and delegation—are needed for many residents to remain safely in community apartments instead of higher-cost nursing facilities.

Advocates told the committee a fiscal note from the prior session estimated roughly $30 million over the biennium but said that number likely overstates costs because not every ICS recipient would require nursing. Berg said some nursing currently arrives through skilled home health or other waiver-covered services and that adding nursing to ICS may primarily reallocate existing payments rather than create wholly new expenses. He and others argued that funding nursing in ICS could keep people in their homes and avoid more costly placements.

Senator Jim Abeler and others discussed fiscal-note methodology, urging “dynamic” scoring that would count program savings from avoided institutional costs. No formal vote on the bill occurred; the chair said, “Senate File 94 is laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus bill.”

Committee staff said the Department of Human Services contributed technical assistance on the bill. The bill will remain pending for further consideration and potential inclusion in larger human services finance legislation.

The committee did not approve or reject the bill; the committee action recorded by the chair was to lay the bill over for possible omnibus inclusion.