Dementia training is one of the areas Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) surveyors cite most often across care settings. The good news: it is also one of the easiest requirements to get right, because it is as simple as taking the right course, on time, and keeping the proof.
If you operate a skilled nursing facility, assisted living facility, home health agency, home care agency, or nurse registry in Florida, this post walks through what the Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) training requirement asks of you, where providers most often get tripped up, and simple ways to stay audit-ready.
What Florida requires
Florida's ADRD training requirement is set in section 430.5025 of the Florida Statutes and was strengthened by House Bill 299, effective July 1, 2023. It covers nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult family-care homes, adult day care centers, home health agencies, nurse registries, and homemaker and companion service providers. The details depend on the setting. Hospice is not covered by this statute and follows its own rules.
Two requirements apply in every covered setting:
- At hire: basic written information about interacting with persons who have Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
- Within 30 days: a 1-hour ADRD training from the Florida Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA) for each employee who provides personal care or has regular contact with persons with ADRD. DOEA provides this training on its website, and employers keep the certificate in the personnel file.
Employees who provide personal care then complete additional training. The hours and deadlines depend on the setting:
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Setting
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Additional training
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Deadline
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Home health agencies, nurse registries, homemaker and companion providers
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2 hours, for employees who provide personal care
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Within 7 months of hire
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Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult family-care homes, adult day care centers
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3 hours, for employees who provide personal care
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Within 7 months of hire
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Assisted living facilities, adult family-care homes, and adult day care centers designated for or advertising specialized dementia care
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The 3-hour training for employees who provide personal care or have regular contact; 4 more hours of dementia-specific training for those who provide personal care; then 4 hours of continuing education each calendar year
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3 months, then 6 months, then annually
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DOEA approves curricula for each care setting, so a course approved for one setting does not satisfy another. Employees who move to a different type of setting need that setting's training, while those who move within the same type do not repeat it. Trainer-issued certificates should show the curriculum approval number and expiration date, along with the trainer's approval number, so check them when they arrive.
Where providers get cited
Most ADRD citations are not about a missing program. They are about gaps in timing and proof. The patterns that come up most often:
- No written dementia information at hire, or no record that it was provided.
- Missing certificates, or no documentation that the 1-hour course was completed within 30 days.
- The additional hours were never completed by the 7-month deadline for staff providing personal care.
- Staff started working with clients before completing the training.
- A course not approved for your setting, such as a general dementia course taken elsewhere.
None of these are clinical failures. They are administrative ones, which is why they are so preventable.
A simple compliance checklist
A few habits during onboarding can help keep ADRD training on track:
- Give every new hire the basic written dementia information on day one, and keep a signed acknowledgment in the employee file.
- Have every employee who provides personal care or has regular contact complete DOEA's 1-hour training within 30 days of hire.
- Assign the additional hours for your setting (2 or 3) to everyone who provides personal care, due within 7 months of hire.
- Use a curriculum approved by DOEA for your specific care setting.
- Store completion certificates where you can pull them quickly during a survey.
- Review ADRD completion status monthly, so overdue staff are caught before a surveyor finds them.
- Track due dates by hire date, so no employee's 30-day or 7-month deadline passes unnoticed.
Staying compliant without the scramble
The most reliable way to avoid an ADRD citation is to remove the guesswork: use an approved education provider, assign the training at hire, and let your learning platform track completion and store the certificates.
Showd.me is an approved provider of the Florida ADRD curriculum for skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, home health and home care agencies, and nurse registries. If you would like to see how assigning, tracking, and documenting ADRD training works for your organization, contact our team and we will walk you through it.
