Critical Incidents – Medication Errors Rulemaking Update

In January 2026, the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) filed a CR-101 (WSR 26-04-001), the first step of the rulemaking process, to comply with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid requirements. Critical Incident reporting is part of the “Access Rule”, which will be implemented over the next several years. Recently CMS has postponed implementation of several parts of the federal Access Rule, and because of that, DSHS has paused work on the “Critical Incidents – Medication Errors” rulemaking.

Home and Community Based Settings will continue to follow current reporting requirements for their setting. You will be notified of any rulemaking updates as they occur.

Of note, any medication error that could be considered abuse or neglect still must be reported to the DSHS hotline (CRU) and other entities (such as the Department of Health, should the individual who made the error be credentialed); that includes situations where there was a blatant disregard for resident safety, or the resident was harmed or at serious risk of harm due to the medication error.

Please contact [email protected] if you have questions about this issue.