In a first indication of the Trump Administration’s stance on consumer arbitration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week issued a new proposed rule that rolls back the Obama Administration’s regulation, which precluded pre-dispute arbitration agreements in nursing homes. (Too many negatives in that sentence… in other words, the Trump Administration wants to ensure that nursing homes can have arbitration agreements in their admission documents.)
For context, CMS just issued the regulation it is now retracting in October of 2016. The 2016 rule applied to any new agreements between residents and long-term care facilities that receive dollars through Medicare or Medicaid, and prohibited the centers from requiring residents to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of admission. Before the 2016 rule could even take effect, though, its legality was challenged and a federal court stayed implementation of the new regulation during the case.
