Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Intentional and/or reckless false documentation is a crime, also leading to a false claim for reimbursement under the False Claims Act. Such behavior also endangers patients because it obscures recognition that care that was supposed to be provided was not, thereby precluding another caregiver from stepping in to provide necessary care.
The New York Attorney General arrested two CNAs recently for Endangering the Welfare of an Incompetent or Physically Disabled Person in the First Degree and additional related charges that included falsifying resident monitoring records. Both CNAs were employed by a nursing home. The charges are related to the alleged failure by the CNAs to perform monitoring checks on an at-risk resident with dementia who eloped and wandered away from the facility.
Video surveillance recovered from the facility showed the resident leaving the home through an unlocked rear door at approximately 7:54 p.m. It is alleged that after the resident left the facility, 
the accused CNAs failed to perform required fifteen-minute checks that would have alerted the home that the resident was missing, and that one of the CNAs falsely recorded that the safety checks were performed.
After the facility learned that the resident was missing at approximately 10:00 p.m., 911 was called; and, at approximately 3:00 a.m.-nearly seven hours after the resident eloped, the local Police found the resident uninjured and wandering alone almost two miles from the facility.
The accused CNAs both face up to four years in state prison if convicted on the top count.
