GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
1991 SESSION

CHAPTER 710
SENATE BILL 760

AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE QUALIFICATIONS OF NURSING HOME ADMINISTRATORS.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

Section 1.  G.S. 90-278 reads as rewritten:
"§ 90-278. Qualifications for licensure.
The Board shall have authority to issue licenses to qualified persons as nursing home administrators, and shall establish qualification criteria for such nursing home administrators.
(1)	A license as a nursing home administrator shall be issued to any person upon the Board's determination that:
a.	He is at least 18 years of age, of good moral character and of sound physical and mental health; and
b.	He has successfully completed the equivalent of two years of college level study (60 semester hours or 96 quarter hours) from an accredited community college, college or university prior to application for licensure;
	or 
	has completed a combination of education and experience, acceptable under rules promulgated by the Board, prior to application for licensure. Under this provision, two years of supervisory experience in a nursing home shall be equated to one year of college study; and
c.	He has satisfactorily completed a course prescribed by the Board, which course contains instruction on the services provided by nursing homes, laws governing nursing homes, protection of patient interests and nursing home administration; and
d.	He has successfully completed his training period as an administrator-in-training as prescribed by the Board.  If a person has served at least 12 weeks as a hospital administrator or assistant administrator of a hospital-based long-term care nursing unit or hospital-based swing beds licensed under Article 5 of Chapter 131E or Article 2 of Chapter 122C, the Board shall consider this experience comparable to the initial on-the-job portion of the administrator-in-training program only; and
e.	He has passed examinations administered by the Board and designed to test for competence in the subject matters referred to in paragraph c of this subdivision.
(2)	Repealed by Session Laws 1981, c. 722, s. 6.
(3)	A temporary license may be issued under requirements and conditions prescribed by the Board to any person to act or serve as administrator of a nursing home without meeting the requirements for full licensure, but only when there are unusual circumstances preventing compliance with the procedures for licensing elsewhere provided by this Article.  The temporary license shall be issued by the chairman only for the period prior to the next meeting of the Board, at which time the Board may renew such temporary license for a further period only up to one year."
Sec. 2.  This act is effective upon ratification.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 16th day of July, 1991.

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James C. Gardner
President of the Senate

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Daniel Blue, Jr.
Speaker of the House of Representatives