Download audio HERE

BUTLER COUNTY, IOWA – U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced legislation to enhance access to information regarding the safety and quality of inpatient psychiatric care facilities (IPFs) to help patients and families make fully-informed decisions.

The Psychiatric Hospital Inspection Transparency Act allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to disclose hospital accreditation inspection reports to provide more transparency and encourage providers to improve their quality of care and services. Additionally, the bill requires the Secretary to publish information from inpatient psychiatric facility inspections that were conducted by accreditation organizations or state survey agencies.

“My oversight has shown alarming neglect at a handful of inpatient psychiatric facilities across the country. Unfortunately, the public, patients and lawmakers are currently left in the dark without access to clear and accessible information. By making psychiatric hospital inspection reports publicly available and comprehensible, my legislation would provide meaningful support for patients and families and help raise the standard of care. It would also support the ability of inpatient psychiatric facilities that are doing a good job to show off their good work,” Grassley said.

Grassley is an outspoken advocate for improved oversight and transparency at health care facilities that care for vulnerable Americans, such as nursing homes and IPFs. His past work revealed that inspection reports by accreditation organizations are completely inaccessible to consumers in most states. Grassley has previously called for improving the quality of information available to the public about nursing homes. He’s also pushed for greater transparency of financial relationships between drug makers and providers and of the misuse of psychotropic drugs in nursing homes and with foster youth.

Background:

In 2017, Grassley’s oversight identified a psychiatric hospital in Oklahoma that had one third of the staff it needed, used unwarranted physical restraints on children and neglected self-injuring children. Yet, its inspection reports were inaccessible to the public because it was accredited.

In 2017, Grassley urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to make hospital accreditation inspection reports publicly available. While CMS had proposed making the reports public, it withdrew the proposed rule after identifying it would violate part of the Social Security Act barring the HHS Secretary from disclosing “any accreditation survey.”

In February, Grassley pressed CMS to provide clear and accessible information on inpatient psychiatric facilities, including findings from inspections, by bolstering its web-based tools to find and compare IPFs so that families can make fully informed decisions. In CMS’s response to Senator Grassley, the agency noted that the Social Security Act prohibits disclosing accreditation surveys, which limited its ability to include information from inspection reports in its facility comparison tools. Congress has improved transparency in accreditation inspection reports before. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, amended Section 1865(b) to allow the Secretary to disclose accreditation inspection reports for hospices.

In its Fiscal Year 2026 final rule, CMS recognized public support for establishing a star rating system that prioritizes areas related to facility inspection reports as well as patient experience and psychiatric patient safety (including physical assaults, sexual assaults, suicides, unexpected deaths, injuries and elopements). This type of system could only be created if Grassley’s legislation is enacted.

Click HERE to view text of the legislation.

-30-