District of Columbia

The grounds, as the District describes them

D.C. Code § 44-1003.01(a) states "Unless a resident and his or her representative consent otherwise, a facility may discharge the resident, transfer the resident to another facility, or relocate the resident from one part or room of the facility to another only:", in the statute's own order (code.dccouncil.gov, section history Apr. 18, 1986, D.C. Law 6-108, § 301, last amended Apr. 29, 2010, D.C. Law 18-145, § 4(b); retrieved 2026-09-26):

(1) "If essential to meet that resident’s documented health-care needs or to be in accordance with his or her prescribed level of care;"

(2) "If essential to safeguard that resident or one or more other residents from physical or emotional injury;"

(3) "On account of nonpayment for his or her maintenance, after reasonable and appropriate notice, except as prohibited by subsection (b) of this section and 42 U.S.C. § 1395 et seq. and 42 U.S.C. § 1396 et seq.;"

(4) "If essential to meet the facility’s reasonable administrative needs and no practicable alternative is available; or"

(5) "If the facility is closing or officially reducing its licensed capacity."

Subsection (b) states a District-Medicaid-specific limit on grounds (3) and its neighbors: "No facility that is a District Medicaid provider may discharge, transfer, or relocate a resident on account of his or her conversion from private-pay or Medicare to Medicaid status, or on account of a temporary hospitalization if payment or reimbursement for his or her bed continues to be made available."

Subsection (f) of § 44-1003.02 states a related right attached to ground (3): "Whenever nonpayment is the ground for a proposed involuntary discharge or transfer, the resident shall have the right to redeem up to the time that the discharge or transfer is to be effected and, if full payment is made, shall have the right to remain in the facility."

The published process

Requesting the hearing

§ 44-1003.03(a)(1): whenever a facility decides to involuntarily discharge, transfer, or relocate a resident, "that resident, his or her representative, or the Long-Term Care Ombudsman may contest the decision by mailing a written hearing request to the Mayor and notifying the administrator or facility staff of the request:" "(A) Within 7 calendar days after receiving notice of a proposed discharge or transfer to another facility; or" "(B) Within 5 calendar days after receiving notice of a proposed relocation within the facility." Subsection (a)(2) states the mailing rule: "If the resident or resident’s representative mails the hearing request from the facility, the day he or she places it in the facility’s outgoing mail or gives it to a member of the facility staff for mailing shall be considered the date of mailing for purposes of the 7-day and 5-day time limits. In all other cases, the postmark date shall be considered the date of mailing."

The pendency provision, § 44-1003.03(a)(3): "A timely hearing request shall stay the discharge, transfer, or relocation unless a condition set forth in § 44-1003.02(b)(1) and (2) develops in the interim." § 44-1003.03(b): "The Mayor shall hold a hearing at the Office of Administrative Hearings ("OAH") within 10 calendar days, and OAH shall render a decision within 21 calendar days, after a timely hearing request is received. If the resident is unable to travel to OAH due to a physical or mental disability, he or she shall be offered the opportunity to participate remotely through telephone or other means. The facility shall have the burden of proof unless the ground for the proposed discharge, transfer, or relocation is a prescribed change in the resident’s level of care, in which case the person(s) responsible for prescribing that change shall have the burden of proof and the resident shall have the right to challenge the level of care determination at the hearing. A hearing held under this section may not be used by the resident to litigate or relitigate Medicaid eligibility."

The statute directs the hearing request itself "to the Mayor," mailed with notice to the facility; it states no street address or form for that mailing. The prescribed notice form (DC Health's 6-108 form) tells the resident a hearing request form and hearing-rights statement are enclosed with the notice, and lists two agency contacts as enclosures rather than a single filing address (see change log, finding 7). Separately, and only where the hearing has already reached OAH, that office publishes its own filing routes: "Papers may be filed at OAH in person or by mail, by email, or using the OAH eFiling Portal" — "How to File By Mail" "Clerk’s Office" "D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings" "441 Fourth Street NW, Suite 450N" "Washington, DC 20001"; "How to File By Email" "oah.filing@dc.gov"; and, on OAH's About page, its contact block as "441 4th Street, NW, Suite 450 North" "Washington, DC 20001" "Phone: (202) 442-9094" — a different suite-number style from the Filings & Forms page ("Suite 450N" against "Suite 450 North"), both quoted as published. OAH publishes no page specific to nursing-facility discharge cases; § 44-1003.03(b) is what places the hearing there.

The notice's required contents

§ 44-1003.02(d): "The written notice required by subsection (a) of this section shall be on a form prescribed by the Mayor and shall at a minimum contain:" "(1) The specific reason(s), stated in detail and not in conclusory language, for the proposed discharge, transfer, or relocation;" "(2) The proposed effective date of the discharge, transfer, or relocation;" a hearing-rights statement required "in not less than 12-point type" (quoted in full below); "(4) A hearing request form, together with a postage paid envelope preaddressed to the appropriate District official or agency;" "(5) The name, address, and telephone number of the person charged with the responsibility of supervising the discharge, transfer, or relocation;" "(6) The names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman program and local legal services organizations; and" "(7) The location to which the resident will be transferred." Subsection (d-1), added by the same 2010 amendment, requires that on notification of discharge the facility also provide "(1) A current assessment of the resident’s care needs and the kind of service the resident will need upon discharge;" information about counseling on community-based care and in-home care options, "including the right to request that the facility arrange a visit to at least one alternative community-based care facility;" and a discharge plan linking the resident to community resources including the DC Aging and Disability Resource Center.

The 12-point-type hearing-rights statement the notice must carry, § 44-1003.02(d)(3), in full: "You have a right to challenge this facility’s decision to discharge, transfer, or relocate you. If the decision is to discharge you from the facility or to transfer you to another facility and you think you should not have to leave, you or your representative have 7 days from the day you receive this notice to inform the Administrator [Residence Director, if a community residence facility] or a member of the staff that you are requesting a hearing and to complete the enclosed hearing request form and mail it in the preaddressed envelope provided. If you are mailing the hearing request form from the facility, the day you place it in the facility’s outgoing mail or give it to a member of the staff for mailing shall be considered the date of mailing for purposes of the time limit. In all other cases, the postmark date shall be considered the date of mailing. If, instead, the decision is to relocate you within the facility and you think you should not have to move to another room, you or your representative have only 5 days to do the above." "If you or your representative request a hearing, it will be held no later than 5 days after the request is received in the mail, and, in the absence of emergency or other compelling circumstances, you will not be moved before a hearing decision is rendered. If the decision is against you, in the absence of an emergency or other compelling circumstances you will have at least 5 days to prepare for your move if you are being discharge or transferred to another facility, and at least 3 days to prepare for your move if you are being relocated to another room within the facility." "To help you in your move, you will be offered counseling services by the staff, assistance by the District government if you are being discharged or transferred from the facility, and, at your request, additional support from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman program." The phrase "being discharge or transferred to another facility" is the Council's own text, preserved as published.

DC Health's prescribed form (the 6-108 form) carries the notice's contents in a facility-facing layout: item (2) instructs the facility "Must list specific reason(s) for this action:"; the form also asks for the scheduled date and the destination, and, where the move is a hospital transfer or therapeutic leave, to attach "this facility's bed-hold policy" (see below). Item (8) of the form is the District's own contact block for the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program (quoted in the docket); item (9) adds the Department on Disability Services and item (10) the Department of Behavioral Health, for residents with a developmental disability or a mental health issue respectively — neither of which the statute itself names. Item (11) states: "Please find attached a Hearing Request Form and a statement of your hearing rights, together with a postage paid envelope pre-addressed to the appropriate District official or agency." The form's own enclosures list, separate from item (11)'s text, names two officials: the Health Regulation and Licensing Administration's Senior Deputy Director at "899 North Capitol Street, NE, 2nd Floor Washington, DC 20002" and the Department of Health Care Finance's Director at "441 4th Street, NW, 900S Washington, DC 20001" (see change log, finding 7).

Bed-hold and return

Two first-party statements address bed-hold, from two different publishers, and they do not state the same number. DC Health's prescribed notice form asks the facility to attach "this facility's bed-hold policy" when the move is a hospital transfer or therapeutic leave and states: "Your available number of bed-hold days is: *" — a blank the facility itself fills in, not a District-wide figure. Separately, the Medicaid payment rule the Office of Documents and Administrative Issuances codifies, 29 DCMR § 950.1, states the reimbursement ceiling: "Vendor payment for reserved bed days for hospitalization or therapeutic leaves of absence, for a resident of a nursing facility, when provided in the resident's plan of care, shall not exceed eighteen (18) days during any fiscal year, if there is a reasonable expectation that the resident will return to the nursing facility." § 950.4: "Payment for reserved bed days authorized in accordance with section 950.1 shall equal one hundred (100) percent of the facility's per diem rate." § 950.6: "Each resident shall reside in the nursing facility for at least one (1) day as a condition of vendor payment for reserved bed days." §§ 950.7 and 950.8 require the facility to have the family member or caregiver sign "a leave and request form upon exit and return to the facility" with contact information, and to discuss "the resident's medical regimen" and provide "a sufficient quantity of the resident's medication for the leave period." § 950.9 requires the facility to "report to DHCF any unusual incident that occurred during any therapeutic leave of absence." Sections 950.2, 950.3 and 950.5 are marked "[REPEALED]" in the codified text, exactly as published; what they once said is not stated in this rule as currently codified.

Neither publisher's text states what happens to the resident's placement if the resident is absent longer than the facility's bed-hold policy allows, or longer than the 18 Medicaid-reimbursed days: the statute's own return-and-readmission provision found in some other jurisdictions' codes was not located in these sources, and its absence here is a finding, not a determination that the District states none. The sources searched for a return/readmission statement were §§ 44-1003.01 through 44-1003.03 (this page's core statute), the 6-108 form and cover letter, and 29 DCMR § 950 itself; no District-published readmission-after-bed-hold rule was found among them.

The three rows above hoist the questions a facility's counsel answers in the first fifteen minutes and a resident's family almost never finds alone. They are quotations from the District's published sources, not a determination that any of them applies to any situation.

Notice periods and deadlines, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none calculated.

Twenty-one days' advance notice for a discharge or transfer, seven for a relocation — § 44-1003.02(a): "the oral and written notice shall be given at least 21 calendar days before a proposed discharge or transfer from the facility, and at least 7 calendar days before a proposed relocation within the facility." This is subject to the two circumstances at (b)(1)–(2) and to the resident and representative's consent to shorter notice.

Thirty days, per the prescribed form — DC Health's 6-108 form states instead: "You should receive this notice at least thirty (30) days prior to the date of transfer or discharge from the facility. You should receive this notice at least seven (7) days prior to a relocation within the facility." Both this and the statute's 21-day figure are quoted; neither is reconciled here (see change log, finding 1).

Seven days to request a hearing on a discharge or transfer, five days on a relocation — § 44-1003.03(a)(1), quoted in full above.

Ten days to the OAH hearing, twenty-one days to its decision — § 44-1003.03(b): "The Mayor shall hold a hearing at the Office of Administrative Hearings ("OAH") within 10 calendar days, and OAH shall render a decision within 21 calendar days, after a timely hearing request is received."

Twenty-two days (discharge/transfer) or eight days (relocation) before the resident may be moved after a ground is proven, each measured from two alternative starting points — § 44-1003.03(c): if the Mayor finds a § 44-1003.01(a) ground proven "by clear and convincing evidence," the resident shall not be "Discharged or transferred from the facility before the 22nd calendar day following his or her receipt of the notice required by § 44-1003.02(a) or the 5th calendar day following his or her notification of the hearing decision, whichever is later" (or, for a relocation, "the 8th calendar day following his or her receipt of the notice required by § 44-1003.02(a) or the 3rd calendar day following his or her notification of the hearing decision, whichever is later"), in each case unless a § 44-1003.02(b)(1)–(2) condition develops in the interim.

Eighteen bed-hold days per fiscal year, for Medicaid vendor payment — 29 DCMR § 950.1, quoted in full above.

What any of these periods means for a particular case is for the hearing office or relevant District process to determine.

Source map

Captured: all twelve sources in tools/packets/district-of-columbia-packet.txt, plus the § 950 rule text in tools/packets/district-of-columbia-packet-bedhold.txt. Pending: the hearing request form and statement of hearing rights the statute requires to be enclosed with the notice, which the prescribed form names as enclosures but which are not posted as separate documents on the pages captured; §§ 44-1003.04 through 44-1003.13 of the subchapter; any Department of Aging and Community Living page on the ombudsman program (none reachable — see finding 4); a District-published statement of what happens to a resident's placement after the bed-hold period expires (searched and not found — see section 02).

Change log

2026-10-06 — Internet Archive captures recorded. Captures requested on 2026-09-06 by an automated capture pass and recorded this date; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: DC Health, served through the District's SeamlessDocs platform → https://web.archive.org/web/20260906133949/https://dcgov.seamlessdocs.com/f/DOHNoticeofDischargeTransferorRelocationForm; DC Health → https://web.archive.org/web/20260906134022/https://dchealth.dc.gov/service/incident-report-and-6-108-discharge-transfer-and-relocation-forms; DC Health, Health Regulation and Licensing Administration → https://web.archive.org/web/20260906134102/https://dchealth.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doh/publication/attachments/6_108%20Cover%20Letter%20to%20Nursing%20Home%20Providers.pdf; D.C. Office of Documents and Administrative Issuances, DCMR portal → https://web.archive.org/web/20260906134129/https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/SectionList.aspx?SectionNumber=29-950; DC Office of Administrative Hearings → https://web.archive.org/web/20260906134223/https://oah.dc.gov/page/filings-forms.

2026-09-27 — Deepened to a full page. Section 01 (the grounds) and section 02 (the published process, including the hoisted rows and the notice-periods register) were written from the standing packet, recaptured 2026-09-26 (recipe digest f6b61c9f4ef7; no source text changed from the 2026-09-04 baseline capture). One new source was obtained for the bed-hold row: 29 DCMR § 950's adopted-rule text, which the standing packet's source 12 could reach only as a listing (see finding 5 below and the 2026-09-04 entry). The listing's own page carries a hidden rulemaking-history table wired to ASP.NET __doPostBack controls; a GET to the listing followed by a POST to the same URL, in the same cookie jar, carrying that GET's __VIEWSTATE/__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR/__EVENTVALIDATION values and __EVENTTARGET set to the "View Text" control for the current adopted rule (row "R0035043 ... Effective: 3/9/2018"), returns the rule as a legacy Word 6.0/95 binary (29950.doc, Content-Disposition: attachment), converted to text with macOS textutil -convert txt. This is not the recipe's plain-GET transport and is not expressible in the recipe grammar without changing capture.py, which this pass does not do; the source is carried as a hand-written supplemental packet, tools/packets/district-of-columbia-packet-bedhold.txt, marked not automatically re-verifiable, per PROVENANCE.md's supplemental-packet and first-party-API provisions. The __EVENTTARGET control ID is an application-level identifier: if a later recapture attempt returns a different section under the same control ID, that is capture drift to be re-established from a fresh listing, not evidence that the rule changed. Findings: (8) DC Health's prescribed form does not itself state a District-wide bed-hold day count; it asks the facility to attach its own bed-hold policy and fill in "Your available number of bed-hold days is:" as a blank. The number a resident receives on the form and the Medicaid reimbursement ceiling the District states in 29 DCMR § 950.1 (eighteen days per fiscal year) are two different things from two different publishers, and are not reconciled here. (9) No first-party statement of what happens to a resident's placement after the bed-hold period expires — the pattern seen in some other states' codes — was found among the sources reviewed for this page (the core statute, the 6-108 form and cover letter, and 29 DCMR § 950 itself); this is recorded as an absence at that scope, not a determination that the District publishes no such rule anywhere. Capture pending: per the source map. Internet Archive: not yet submitted for the new source. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-09-27. Corrections: hello@fieldassembly.net.

2026-09-04 — Baseline page built from the first District of Columbia packet: docket, lede, source map, change log. Not yet captured or written: section 01 (the grounds, as the District describes them) and section 02 (the published process, including the notice's required contents in full, bed-hold and return, and the notice-periods register). Transports: every source was fetched by curl with a browser user-agent through the capture recipe (tools/recipes/district-of-columbia.json); the cover letter was read with pdftotext in layout mode, the eleven pages by tag-stripping the body, with Cloudflare's email obfuscation decoded by the shared capture reader on the OAH and DCMR pages. No browser or session-fetch transport was needed. The Council's code library prints no currency date on a section page; the Code's home page does, and is captured as a version witness. Findings: (1) The statute and the prescribed form state different notice periods. § 44-1003.02(a) requires notice "at least 21 calendar days before a proposed discharge or transfer from the facility"; DC Health's form, which the department's 2008 letter says facilities are required to use unaltered, tells the resident "You should receive this notice at least thirty (30) days prior to the date of transfer or discharge from the facility." Both are quoted; neither is reconciled here. (2) The Council publishes two contradictory Applicability notes beneath § 44-1003.03, one stating that the 2018 amendment "has been implemented" and the other that it "has not been implemented"; the section text as published is what the page quotes, and the notes are recorded here as the Council prints them. (3) The statute's own hearing-rights text, which the notice must reproduce in 12-point type, reads "if you are being discharge or transferred to another facility"; that is the Council's text and is preserved wherever quoted. (4) The Department of Aging and Community Living's site returned 404 or 403 on every address tried for a long-term care ombudsman page on 2026-09-04; this is a transport result about that site, not a finding that the department publishes no such page, and the ombudsman row rests on the program's own page and on the contact block DC Health's form prescribes. (5) 29 DCMR § 950, Payment for Reserved Beds, is the District's Medicaid statement on holding a bed; the DCMR portal lists it with an effective date of 3/9/2018 but serves its text only through a session-bound ASP.NET postback that curl cannot follow, and a direct RuleDetail address returns 403. The listing is captured; the text is capture-pending, and this is a transport result, not an absence. (6) The Office of Administrative Hearings publishes no page specific to nursing-facility discharge cases; § 44-1003.03(b) is what places the hearing there, and the office's general filing routes are what is quoted. (7) DC Health's transmittal letter is dated December 31, 2008 and cites the notice provision as "§ 44-1432(d)(1)", the pre-2001 codification; it is the newest letter the department posts beside the form and is quoted with its date. Capture pending: per the source map. Internet Archive: not yet submitted. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-09-04. Corrections: hello@fieldassembly.net.