Just as the Trump administration is attempting to prevent nursing home residents or their families from ever being able to sue longterm care facilities for neglect or fraud, a federal audit claims that an alarming percentage of physical and sexual abuse cases at nursing homes may be going unreported to law enforcement. [More]
nursing homes
31 Senators Ask Trump Administration To Not Strip Nursing Home Residents, Families Of Their Legal Rights
By 8.7.17
Nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the U.S. have faced increasing criticism for shoddy care and bad business practices. At the same time, many of these facilities have begun using contractual language that explicitly prohibits residents or their loved ones from filing lawsuits when things go wrong. Now dozens of senators are calling on the Trump administration to rethink its decision to let this practice continue. [More]
Trump Administration Will Allow Nursing Homes To Strip Residents Of Legal Rights
June 7, 2017
The Trump administration has proposed revising a rule that hasn’t even gone into effect yet, with the goal of making sure that nursing home residents and their loved ones can not sue these long-term care facilities in the event that something horrible happens. [More]
Supreme Court Throws Out State Rule Protecting Nursing Home Residents From Having Rights Signed Away
By 5.15.17
A lot of people in nursing homes have adult children or other trusted people with authority to make financial, legal, and medical decisions on their behalf. However, can folks with power of attorney also sign away someone else’s right to have their day in court? According to the U.S. Supreme Court, yes. [More]
House ‘Freedom Caucus’ Asks Trump To Undo 232 Rules On Net Neutrality, Tobacco, Nursing Homes & Ceiling Fans
By 12.15.16
What’s on your wish list this holiday season? For the few dozen members of the House of Representatives Freedom Caucus, the hope to see President-elect Donald Trump undo or revise more than 200 federal rules involving everything from tobacco to food labels to ceiling fans to your constitutional right to bring a lawsuit against your credit card company. [More]
Court: Nursing Homes Can Continue Stripping New Residents Of Their Right To Day In Court
By 11.7.16
In September, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new rule that would prevent most nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from using forced arbitration to strip new residents of their right to file lawsuits against these companies. The industry soon fired back by doing the very thing it doesn’t want its customers to do: filing a lawsuit. This morning, the judge in the case granted the industry’s request for a preliminary injunction preventing the new rule from being enforced. [More]
Nursing Home Industry Files Lawsuit To Keep Preventing Patients From Filing Lawsuits
By 10.18.16
Last month, the federal government issued new rules for nursing homes, barring most long-term care facilities from using forced arbitration agreements to stop new residents from filing lawsuits against the homes. Now nursing home operators and industry trade groups are challenging that rule by doing the one thing they want to prevent their patients from doing: going to court. [More]
New Rule Will Stop Many Nursing Homes From Stripping Residents Of Their Right To Sue
By 9.28.16
As we’ve written about previously, some nursing homes and other long-term care facilities use forced arbitration contracts to prevent their residents bringing a legal action against the home in a court of law. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule that will prohibit long-term care facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid from forcing residents into arbitration. [More]
How One Email Set Off A 6-Year Legal Battle With No End In Sight
By 6.30.16
It was a simple email: four sentences sent in early 2010 to a nursing home administrator about the care of one of the home’s residents. Days later, the author of that email — along with his girlfriend, the resident’s daughter — were accused of trespassing, civil harassment, intentional interference with contractual relations, and, bizarrely, defamation; ostensibly because they had exercised their legal right to copy their attorney on the message. [More]
Are You Unintentionally Signing Away Your Elderly Parents’ Right To Sue Their Nursing Home?
By 2.22.16
When an elderly parent is no longer able to make sensible medical decisions for themselves, an adult child is often named a medical proxy to handle these important calls. But does this life-or-death authority over a parent’s medical care carry over to things like signing legally binding contracts, and possible signing away your, or your parent’s, right so sue their nursing home? [More]
California Accused Of Allowing Nursing Homes To Permanently “Dump” Elderly Patients On Hospitals
By 11.9.15
A new lawsuit accuses the California Department of Health and Human Services of deliberately turning a blind eye to the illegal practice of taking nursing home residents who receive state aid and “dumping” them into the hospital system by refusing to let them return, even under binding orders to readmit them. [More]
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Yelp Adds Hospital Wait Times, Nursing Home Fine Info To Reviews
By 8.5.15
When a trip to the emergency room is in order, you’re usually in a hurry, because, after all, it’s an emergency. Sitting around waiting to be seen by a doctor can be an agonizing experience for those in need of quick help. While Yelp can’t hurry along those doctors, it can apparently tell you just how long you might expect to be camped out in the hospital E.R. [More]
Florida Nursing Home To Pay $17M After Allegedly Using Medicare Money For Doctors’ Kickbacks
By 6.17.15
When a nursing home receives Medicare funds, it’s supposed to use that money for patient care, and it’s actually a felony offense under the Medicare and Medicaid Patient Protection Act to use that money to pay kickbacks to physicians for referring patients. In a record settlement for this sort of case, a the operator of a network of Florida nursing homes will pay $17 million to close the books on allegations it ran this sort of kickback scheme for seven years. [More]
Should Lawyers Be Held Accountable When Clients Sue Just To Punish Whistleblowers?
By 4.2.15
Deep-pocketed companies have a long history of filing frivolous lawsuits with the sole intent of putting defendants through the expensive legal wringer. This sort of courtroom bullying is known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) and several states have Anti-SLAPP laws to deter this type of abuse. Plaintiffs that file these lawsuits can face penalties, but one question being considered by a California appeals court is whether plaintiffs’ lawyers should be held accountable for allowing their clients to behave badly. [More]
Former Nursing Home Manager Accused Of Stealing $460K From Residents
By 10.20.14
Authorities in Michigan say that a manager of a nursing home spent several years siphoning off residents’ funds, making herself wealthier to the tune of nearly half a million dollars in the process — and she wasn’t caught until after she’d already been fired. [More]
Maggots Found On Nursing Home Residents
By 11.1.11
The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs in Michigan has cited two nursing homes for violations after a survey found two elderly women in their care had maggots in their throat and pubic areas. Now a watchdog group is investigating. [More]
Cross-Dressing Thieves Disguised As Nurses Strike Denver Nursing Homes
By 8.15.11
A pair of male thieves who dressed as female nurses are accused of robbing residents of Denver-area nursing homes, making off with credit cards they used at big-box retail stores. Authorities say the alleged criminals, who wear nurse scrubs, made their move when victims are dining or participating in other activities. The crimes could be connected to a national ring with similar incidents in Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Kansas and Alabama. [More]
Make Sure The Nursing Home Isn't Dosing Grandma Into Submission
By 8.3.11
A pill is just so much easier. Drug ’em up and shut ’em up. Rather than deal with all the individual needs of elderly persons with dementia in their care, some nursing homes are dosing them with powerful antipsychotics. Not only have the folk not received a diagnosis that the medicine was designed to treat, not only does the drug turn them into zombies their families don’t recognize, but the FDA has warned that using antipsychotics on older patients with dementia nearly doubles their risk of death. [More]
