Assisted living communities in Arkansas have state-enforced rules and regulations to ensure that the facilities are clean and well-maintained and the residents receive proper care. The Arkansas Department of Human Services, the Division of Medical Services and the Office of Long-Term Care license and regulate the state’s assisted living communities to ensure compliance.

Assisted Living Service Plan Requirements

When residents are admitted, the assisted living community is required to conduct a thorough assessment to determine their care needs. This assessment must be conducted on an annual basis, ensuring that as residents' needs change, their care plan changes to accommodate.

Assisted Living Admission Requirements

In Arkansas, an assisted living community cannot admit or retain someone who is not independently mobile. Every resident must have the physical and mental ability to leave the building within three minutes. Communities also cannot admit a senior who has a feeding or intravenous tube, is completely incontinent or needs nursing services beyond what the community provides on a day-to-day basis.

Residents cannot pose a danger to themselves or to others, and they cannot be admitted if they have a mental illness or substance addiction. Finally, a community can turn away a prospective resident if that person’s religious, cultural or dietary regimens cannot be reasonably met.

A resident may only be discharged if the community can no longer meet medical needs.

While some states allow residents to sign a waiver of the admission policy, in Arkansas, residents don’t have that option.

Assisted Living Scope of Care

In a Level I assisted living community, the law requires that the community provides 24-hour supervision by an awake staff. The community must also be able to offer assistance if a resident needs emergency care at any time. Staff members are to assist as necessary to ensure that residents can participate in social and recreational activities, as well as provide assistance with the activities of daily living, with arranging transportation, laundry service and medication assistance as needed.

In a Level II community, there must be a 24-hour awake staff that actively provides direct care services. These services include mobility assistance, assistance with eating meals, other activities of daily living and medication assistance.

In Arkansas, assisted living communities must offer three meals, snacks in between meals and fluids throughout the day. Meals should be no more than five hours apart, and there can be a maximum of 14 hours between the evening meal and the following breakfast.

Assisted Living Medicaid Policy

Arkansas has a Medicaid State Plan, which covers personal care services provided in an assisted living community. If seniors intend to use Medicaid to help cover their care, they should confirm that the community they’ve chosen will accept payment from the program.

Assisted Living Facility Requirements

Every unit has to be an adequate size and be configured in such a way that residents can live as independently as possible, with or without assistance. Units should provide accommodations for sleeping, sitting, dressing and attending to personal hygiene. Additionally, there should be space for storing, preparing, serving and eating food, storing clothes and other personal items, handling personal paperwork and correspondence and entertaining visitors.

Apartment units and rooms must be wheelchair-accessible and usable by residents who use wheelchairs and other mobility aids.

Apartments must have a lockable door and have a separate bathroom and kitchen area. There must be a small refrigerator and microwave in each unit. Units can have no more than two occupants.

Level II communities must have a physically distinct section or wing in which residents live. Every apartment or unit must be single-occupancy unless two consenting adults or married couples have requested and agreed in writing to share an apartment. There is a maximum of two people for each unit.

Medication Management Regulations

In a Level I assisted living community, staff members are permitted to help residents with taking oral medication. Assistance includes bringing the resident the container and opening the container in the resident’s presence and with their consent. If the resident is physically unable to handle the medication but is cognitively able to take it, the staff member is permitted to assist the resident in taking the medication out of the container and take it, so long as the resident has given consent and permission.

In a Level II community, licensed nursing personnel may administer medication. These assisted living communities must have a consulting pharmacist on staff.

Staffing Requirements

Every assisted living community in Arkansas must have a full-time certified administrator who is on site and on duty during normal business hours. The administrator is responsible for the community’s day-to-day operations and for ensuring that the community is in compliance with the state’s rules and regulations. In larger communities, a second full-time or part-time administrator may be hired.

In addition to this, Level II communities must have at least one RN on staff and employ or contract with LPNs and CNAs who provide direct care. The RN doesn’t have to be on site full-time, but they have to be available by phone or pager. One person may be both the administrator and the community’s registered nurse.

Arkansas has specific staffing ratios that communities are required to follow. In a Level I community, there should be at least one day staff member for every 16 residents, one evening staff member for every 32 residents and one night staff member for every 32 residents. In a Level II community, there has to be at least one day staff member for every 15 residents and one staff member per 25 residents during the evening and night hours. There cannot be less than two staff members at any given time.

Staff Training Requirements

Every staff member, whether employed by the community or serving as a contractor, is required to go through orientation and training within seven days of the hire date. This training includes topics such as patients’ rights, building safety and emergency response preparation, sanitation and food safety, and the job’s specific duties.

Within 30 days of their hire date, staff members must take a training class that covers medication assistance and monitoring, cognitive impairment and communicable diseases.

Within 180 days, staff members should receive sensitivity and communication skills training and a review of the aging process.

In addition to this initial training, staff members are required to receive at least six hours a year of ongoing education.

Background Checks for ALR Staff in Arkansas

Administrators are required to conduct a complete criminal background check on every new hire. Prospective caregivers are ineligible for hire if they have any record of abuse, mistreatment or neglect of a person or have any conviction that has to do with the operation of a long-term care community.

Every staff member should be rechecked every five years.

Requirements for Reporting Abuse

Every staff member in an Arkansas assisted living community receives training on how to identify elder abuse. This includes physical, emotional or sexual abuse, financial abuse, neglect and mistreatment. In Arkansas, assisted living community staff members are mandated reporters who are required by law to report instances of elder abuse to the community administrator, who is then legally required to report them to the local law enforcement agency as well as the Office of Long-Term Care of the Division of Medical Services of the Department of Human Services.