Could failing to prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to residents in order to steal cash and credit cards result in substandard quality of care with potential for submission of a false claim?
Compliance Perspective – Unauthorized Staff
Policies/Procedures: The Compliance and Ethics Officer with the Administrator will review policies and procedures involving protection of residents from unauthorized intruders attempting to enter the facility to access residents.
Training: The Compliance and Ethics Officer will ensure that staff are trained to respond in a timely manner to concerns about unauthorized persons in the facility, and to be aware that they may be dressed as staff persons.
Auditing: The Compliance and Ethics Officer with the Administrator should personally conduct an audit by ensuring that the policies and procedures are in place to identify and prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to the residents’ personal property (cash and credit cards).
Dressed in nursing scrubs in order to blend in with staff, two women targeted residents in Indiana nursing homes and assisted living centers across the state, stole thousands of dollars in cash and purchased items using numerous credit cards. Police, with the help of surveillance cameras and callers recognizing the images shown on television, identified the two women and issued warrants for their arrests.
The two women used a “tag-team” method where one woman waited outside of the targeted facility and the other went inside to gather up thousands of dollars in cash and credit cards from purses, drawers and even directly from the residents.
The women would not just go into the facilities, “They’re audacious,” was how one police detective described them. “They took steps to blend and make contact with the residents.”
In one instance, one of the thieves announced she was going to the grocery store and offered to buy items for the residents if they would give her their lists and some money to pay for the items.
The police reported that the women were caught on cameras in several stores and gas stations using the stolen credit cards and cash not to buy things for the residents but to get things for themselves.
Authorities believe that the two women are responsible for multiple crimes in many other communities. Arrest warrants are being issued in every county where it is believed the two women have committed their crimes.
