BATON ROUGE, La. (KLFY) -- State oversight of nursing homes that deal with the developmentally disabled comes up short of its own minimum standards, according to an audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's Office.

Auditors evaluated the Louisiana Department of Health’s activities related to abuse and neglect of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities receiving home and community-based services (HCBS).

LDH’s Health Standards Section has an internal goal to conduct licensure surveys of HCBS providers once every three years to ensure compliance with regulations, but over a quarter of those facilities were not surveyed once in a recent four-year span.

Auditors found that of the 546 providers that needed a licensure survey during fiscal years 2019 through 2023, LDH did not survey 140 (25.6%) of them. In addition, auditors found that LDH conducted 1,979 surveys addressing 5,420 separate allegations of noncompliance, with 2,194 (40.5%) related to abuse or neglect.

LDH also completed 843 (99.4%) of 848 complaint surveys during fiscal years 2022 and 2023 in accordance with required timelines, which was an improvement over the three previous fiscal years, according to the survey.

Officials said that LDH faces numerous challenges in ensuring that critical incident reports are submitted in accordance with program requirements and that while HSS assessed $193,450 in sanctions against HCBS providers during fiscal years 2019 through 2023, the maximum fine amounts allowed by law have not increased since 1997.

The state auditor conducted this audit in response to legislative interest, concerns voiced by stakeholders and the vulnerable nature of the population served, officials said.

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