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As our country navigates its way through the coronavirus pandemic, it is clear that nursing home patients make up one of our most vulnerable populations. Consequently, it is important that nursing homes be vigilant in the care of their patients, and strictly adhere to proper treatment protocols and standards.  Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

The New York Times has recently published an article about wrongful patient discharges and evictions from nursing homes, sometimes referred to as “patient dumping.”   The article was  published on June 21 and highlights the evictions of patients from nursing homes, whose medical bills and expenses are paid by Medicaid, to homeless shelters and unsafe locations.  In some cases, no advance notice is given to the patients or their families.   “We’re dealing with unsafe discharges, whether it be to a homeless shelter or to unlicensed facilities, on a daily basis, and COVID-19 has made this all more urgent,” Molly Davies, the Los Angeles ombudsman, whose office works with residents at about 400 nursing homes, told The Times.

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Continue Reading Nursing Home Discharges and Evictions Rise During COVID-19 Pandemic

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal is asking for the general public’s help while investigating Nursing Home facilities. There have been multiple reports of misconduct in the homes. “We’ve lost too many lives of long-term care facility residents to COVID-19. Roughly half of all of our COVID-19 deaths statewide have been of individuals who had been within the long-term care system,” Grewal recently stated in a Coronavirus press briefing. With these unsettling statistics in mind, the Attorney General office is specifically investigating any “illegal activity or other misconduct involving a New Jersey-based LTC during the COVID-19 pandemic”.
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Continue Reading Nursing Home Reports Anonymous Link for General Public

An investigation has been launched by the State Attorney General’s Office into the handling of COVID-19 by nursing homes in New Jersey. The investigation will focus on both civil and criminal liability and penalties for these facilities. The Office will be investigating the lack of staffing and mishandling that may have led to infection and death of patients, as well as the lack of transparency and failure to communicate with patients’ families during this distressing time.
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Continue Reading Attorney General Investigates State’s Nursing Homes – Hotbed of COVID-19 Fatalities

It is important to recognize the hard work of nurses in the fight against COVID-19, but in nursing homes, problems continue to be discovered.

Unfortunately, we saw a spike of more than 1,500 deaths of nursing home patients from early to mid- April according to recent reports. As is being recognized, the nursing home population is vulnerable to the pandemic due to their age, or already compromised health. However, it should not go unnoticed that the problems some nursing homes are now experiencing are due in part to long-standing inadequacies in those facilities prior to the spread of COVID-19.

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Continue Reading Long-Standing Inadequacies Lead to Further Issues Within Nursing Homes

We commend the nurses and medical personnel on the front lines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as long time advocates for nursing home patients, we are aware of some of the issues developing in already problematic nursing homes. Some of these issues are being revealed by the media.
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Continue Reading Problematic Developments in Nursing Homes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Generally speaking, a nursing home facility is a resident’s home. Consequently, residents can have guests visit them at the nursing home whenever they want. Residents can choose whomever they want to visit and can decide to have their visitors present while they are receiving medical or nursing care. By federal law, in nursing homes that accept federal Medicare or Medicaid funding, residents have a right to visitors any time they like, regardless of whether the nursing home has posted visitation hours.
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Continue Reading Visitation Rights of New Jersey Nursing Home Residents During COVID-19 Pandemic

When a family member moves into an assisted care facility, their new home is evaluated from many angles. What is the living space like? What are the staff qualifications? Have there been concerns raised in the past? Most likely, you aren’t considering the potential need for litigation.

Yet among the many pages of admissions paperwork, nursing home residents and their families are being asked to sign a forced arbitration agreement before being admitted. This agreement bars a court hearing in the case of disputes, including those that address abuse, injury, or wrongful death while at the facility.

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Continue Reading Railroaded: Forced Arbitration Clause Should Alarm Nursing Home Residents

Updated 9/20/2019 – Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act — a groundbreaking bill that would prohibit all companies, including nursing homes, from using forced arbitration.

The bill now moves to the Senate, and if passed, access to the court system may be restored to the multitudes of Americans who have been forced into arbitration or even unknowingly signed away their constitutional right to sue. This bill is crucial for nursing home residents, who have had a long, difficult history of being forced into unfair arbitration.

Because these clauses are often buried in a stack of documents, many nursing home residents and their families are unaware of their inability to sue until something bad happens. If passed, the FAIR Act would go a far way to leveling the playing field for nursing home residents.

Original blog below:

Legal rights will once again be stripped away from elderly and disabled residents in nursing homes. On July 16, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid overturned the ban on nursing homes using arbitration agreements with their residents. For decades, nursing facilities could hide their malpractice and handle all claims brought against them behind closed doors by forcing residents to sign away their legal rights in arbitration agreements. For residents who experienced neglect, assault, or death due to a facility’s failures, their families were denied access to the Court system because these agreements waived the rights of residents to a jury trial awarded to them by the Constitution. Instead, claims were decided in a process presided over by an arbitrator often of the nursing home’s choosing, and many times pursuant to the nursing home’s rules. When things went horribly wrong due to their malpractice, nursing homes were able to contain their costs in these arbitration proceedings in which discovery was a less than searching process and awards for damages to the residents would often be low.

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Continue Reading New Arbitration Rule Violates the Rights of Vulnerable Nursing Home Residents

Late last December, a nurse at Hacienda HealthCare in Arizona panicked and called 911 as a patient unexpectedly gave birth. The 29 year old patient, who has been in a vegetative state since age 3, delivered a healthy baby boy. A police investigation concluded that one of her caregivers, a 32 year-old male nurse, raped the patient several times and fathered the child. The victim’s attorneys filed a $45 million notice of claim against the state of Arizona in late May.

After giving birth in the nursing home, the victim and baby were transferred to a nearby hospital. According to the hospital, the baby’s birth was “a repeat parous event,” meaning the victim had likely been pregnant before.

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Continue Reading Incapacitated Woman Gave Birth in Arizona Nursing Home: Attorneys seeking $45M from the State

Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) revised their Nursing Home Compare 5-Star Quality Rating System, giving 29 New Jersey nursing facilities a one-star rating. These updates intend to give consumers clearer information about the quality of care residents receive at different nursing centers. The changes also aim to promote quality improvement within the facilities.
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Continue Reading Revised Quality Rating System Gives 29 New Jersey Nursing Homes a One-Star Rating