(a) No long-term health care facility participating as a provider under the Medi-Cal program shall seek to evict out of the facility or, effective January 1, 2002, transfer within the facility, any resident as a result of the resident changing his or her manner of purchasing the services from private payment or Medicare to Medi-Cal, except that a facility may transfer a resident from a private room to a semiprivate room if the resident changes to Medi-Cal payment status. This section also applies to residents who have made a timely and good faith application for Medi-Cal benefits and for whom an eligibility determination has not yet been made.

(b) This section does not apply to any resident of a skilled nursing facility or intermediate care facility, receiving respite care services, as defined in Section 1418.1 of the Health and Safety Code, unless it is already being provided through a Medicaid waiver program pursuant to Section 1396n of Title 42 of the United States Code, or is already allowed as a covered service by the Medi-Cal program.

(c) Nothing in this section shall limit a facility’s ability to transfer a resident within a facility, as provided by law, because of a change in a resident’s health care needs or if the bed retention would result in there being no available Medicare-designated beds within a facility.

(d) This section shall be implemented only to the extent it does not conflict with federal law.

(Amended by Stats. 2000, Ch. 451, Sec. 34. Effective January 1, 2001.)