The Florida Senate

The Agency for Health Care Administration, in consultation with the department, shall develop rules for the licensure of transitional living facilities for individuals who have brain or spinal cord injuries.

The goal of a transitional living program for individuals who have brain or spinal cord injuries is to assist each individual who has such a disability to achieve a higher level of independent functioning and to enable that person to reenter the community. The program shall be focused on preparing participants to return to community living.

A transitional living facility for an individual who has a brain or spinal cord injury shall provide to such individual, in a residential setting, a goal-oriented treatment program designed to improve the individual’s physical, cognitive, communicative, behavioral, psychological, and social functioning, as well as to provide necessary support and supervision. A transitional living facility shall offer at least the following therapies: physical, occupational, speech, neuropsychology, independent living skills training, behavior analysis for programs serving brain-injured individuals, health education, and recreation.

All residents shall use the transitional living facility as a temporary measure and not as a permanent home or domicile. The transitional living facility shall develop an initial treatment plan for each resident within 3 days after the resident’s admission. The transitional living facility shall develop a comprehensive plan of treatment and a discharge plan for each resident as soon as practical, but no later than 30 days after the resident’s admission. Each comprehensive treatment plan and discharge plan must be reviewed and updated as necessary, but no less often than quarterly. This subsection does not require the discharge of an individual who continues to require any of the specialized services described in paragraph (c) or who is making measurable progress in accordance with that individual’s comprehensive treatment plan. The transitional living facility shall discharge any individual who has an appropriate discharge site and who has achieved the goals of his or her discharge plan or who is no longer making progress toward the goals established in the comprehensive treatment plan and the discharge plan. The discharge location must be the least restrictive environment in which an individual’s health, well-being, and safety is preserved.