The South Dakota Department of Health released the 2020 Nursing Facility Moratorium Report. The report is an annual report on the need for additional nursing facility beds or nursing facilities.
The nursing facility moratorium was originally enacted in 1988. The moratorium caps the number of nursing facility beds per facility and overall statewide. The purpose of the moratorium was to help control long term health care costs, to make sure our elderly received the most appropriate level of long term care, and to spur further growth of home-based and community-based services such as home health care, assisted living centers, and residential living centers. In 2016, an interim legislative committee was formed to study the various issues around the regulation of nursing facility and assisted living facility beds and ultimately codified SDCL 34-12-35.11 mandating a report to inform the Senate and House Standing Committees on Health and Human Services of the work that has been done to date in considering additional nursing facility beds or new nursing facilities, and other long-term health care needs.
The full report is available here.
