The Maryland Legislature passed recent legislation affecting Continuing Care Retirement Communities (“CCRCs”) which becomes effective October 1, 2024.
Under this new legislation, CCRC providers must:

• Post the most recent Disclosure Statement on its CCRC website;
• Meet with all residents quarterly rather than for one annual meeting; and
• Report, at the last quarterly meeting of the year, a summary of the aggregated, deidentified internal grievances filed under the grievance procedure.

The grievances that must be reported are those that are submitted in writing to the provider and are subject to the provider’s grievance procedure whereby there is a written acknowledgment of the grievance; the resident has the right to meet with management about the grievance; the provider must respond in writing within a certain timeframe about the investigation and resolution of the grievance; and at the conclusion of the internal grievance procedure, either party may seek mediation which is non-binding.

On an annual basis, the Maryland Department of Aging (“MDoA”) shall collect from each provider information about the grievances filed for each of the provider’s facilities including:

• The number of internal grievances that were filed;
• The aggregated, deidentified summary of the internal grievances;
• Whether a grievance went to mediation and the outcome of the mediation; and
• The final disposition of each filed grievance.

Each year, on or before December 1, the MDoA shall report to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Health and Government Operations Committee on the data received from the providers.

In addition, if an Entrance Fee refund is conditioned on the reoccupying of a unit and the unit has not been reoccupied within nine (9) months of the resident’s death or the date of the contract termination, a provider is required to submit a written report to the resident or the resident’s beneficiary stating:

• that the unit has not been reoccupied; and
• the efforts the provider has made to reoccupy the unit.

Thereafter, the provider shall submit an updated report every six (6) months to the resident or the resident’s beneficiary until the resident’s unit has been reoccupied.

Furthermore, the new legislation allows a resident member of the CCRC governing body to report on nonconfidential deliberations, actions and policies of the CCRC governing body to the Resident Association. The CCRC governing body in its sole and reasonable discretion shall determine whether a matter is confidential. Therefore, it is important for CCRC governing bodies to determine what information in its meetings should be held confidential or may be disclosed, and to make sure that the resident member understands what information must be held in confidence.