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The Center for Medicare Advocacy (CMA) recently issued a Special Report focusing on progressively ineffective enforcement actions against nursing-home facilities that have demonstrated a pattern of serious noncompliance with federal nursing-home care standards meant to ensure quality care and resident safety.

The report concludes that in addition to a noncompliant nursing home’s ability to mislead consumers about its quality of care by masking staffing levels and self-reporting quality-care measures to the federal government, penalties in the form of monetary fines—imposed on the most unsafe nursing homes—are declining, and thus, are likely ineffective in improving the care provided to residents.…

Continue Reading What You Should Know About Special Focus Facility Nursing Homes

According Kaiser Health News, an analysis of nursing home financial records revealed that nearly three-quarters of all nursing homes in the U.S. are owned by people who also have vested interest in companies that in turn sell services and goods to these same nursing homes.

These business dealings are known as “related party transactions.” These transactions enable a nursing home owner to arrange contracts with their related businesses above a more competitive price, allowing them to turn around and siphon off the extra profit.…

Continue Reading When Nursing Homes Feed Into Corporate Web, Patient Care Fails

A significant number of nursing home residents are shorter-term residents who are recuperating from surgery or illness. A recent study centered on the information provided when patients are discharged from hospitals to nursing homes, and they or their families are tasked with choosing a post-acute care facility.

As a result of regulations and incentives imposed by the Affordable Care Act, hospitals began being held partly accountable for Medicare patients’ care after discharge. However, little information has been available about the process of patients choosing a post-acute care facility.…

Continue Reading Patients Often Discharged to Nursing Homes with No Information on Quality of Care

As a result of the unstable economy, many adults have been forced to work longer hours or multiple jobs, resulting in less time to care for their elderly parents at home. This is no exception for America’s growing Latino population, who often hold caring for elderly family members in high regard as a cultural tradition.

Government statistics show that Hispanics have a life expectancy of 82 years, longer than non-Hispanic white Americans (78.7 years) and non-Hispanic black Americans (75.1 years). Hispanic women have a life expectancy of 84.3 years. However, according to a poll conducted by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, fewer than two out of every 10 Hispanics age 40 and older say they are extremely confident that nursing homes and assisted living facilities can meet their needs.…

Continue Reading Special Considerations for Latinos Seeking Elder Care

A recent investigation by CNN brought to light the expanding and allegedly inappropriate use of the prescription drug Nuedexta in nursing homes throughout the country. Nuedexta is FDA-approved to treat a rare condition known as pseudobulbar affect (PBA).

What is Pseudobulbar Affect?

Pseudobulbar affect is characterized by sudden and uncontrollable laughing or crying. It is associated with people who have multiple sclerosis (MS) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALM), known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Avanir Pharmaceuticals has been aggressively targeting elderly nursing home residents with the drug, the CNN investigation found, although PBA reportedly impacts less than 1 percent of Americans, based on a calculation using the drug maker’s own figures

What the Investigation Revealed

Nuedexta prescription use in nursing homes is rising at a rapid rate, even though Avanir Pharmaceuticals acknowledges that the drug has not been extensively studied in elderly patients, according to CNN.…

Continue Reading CNN Investigates Expanding Use of Nuedexta in Nursing Homes

The latest tort reform measure, H.R. 1215, the Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017, would place caps on medical malpractice damages, limit attorney fees, and modify statutes of limitations. Among other changes to current law, non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits would be limited to $250,000 – and juries would not be informed of this cap on damages. H.R. 1215 would apply to health care lawsuits where coverage for the care was provided or subsidized by the federal government, including through subsidies or tax benefits.

H.R. 1215 would preempt state laws governing health care litigation in several areas, including statutes of limitation, joint and several liability, product liability, and attorney contingency fees.

Proponents of the bill claim that the bill would lower medical liability insurance premiums, and by extension, reduce the incidence of so-called “defensive” medical treatments and lower costs associated with federal health care programs such as Medicaid.…

Continue Reading Will Tort Reform Affect Nursing Home Care?

If you are a member of the so-called “sandwich generation” – those people who are simultaneously caring for children as well as their elderly parents – you may be familiar with U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings. But did you know that U.S. News & World Report also has nursing home ratings? In fact, U.S. News recently evaluated more than 15,000 nursing homes across the country, ultimately including approximately 2000 of those facilities (366 in New Jersey) in its list of Best Nursing Homes.

U.S. News began publishing online ratings of nursing homes in 2009. Until its latest release, the tool used a “snapshot” of the star ratings posted on Nursing Home Compare, a consumer website of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS assigns an overall rating of one to five stars to nursing homes according to their performance in three areas – state-conducted health inspections, nurse staffing and medical quality measures.…

Continue Reading Where Can I Find Nursing Home Ratings?

Special kudos to the Reading Eagle on its recent series on nursing homes – in particular the editorial We Must Demand Better from Nursing Homes, Regulators, published on December 11, 2016. For those of us who work hard to hold nursing home corporations accountable when seniors are neglected, abused, seriously injured, or die, this series of articles is a vindication.
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Continue Reading Newspaper Highlights Problems with PA Nursing Homes

According to Medicare fraud reports by the U.S. Department of Human Health and Services (HHS), the U.S. Department of Justice’s Medicare Fraud Strike Force team has investigated $7 billion in fraudulent billing since 2007 and prosecuted over 2400 medical professionals and administrators. Part of that amount comes from nursing homes that bill for unnecessary services or for services that have not been provided to the residents that depend on them.

And that fraudulent activity harms nursing home residents as well as our government’s bottom line.…

Continue Reading How Nursing Home Staff Can Help Prevent Medicare Fraud