A California nursing home is accused of committing numerous abuses, then orchestrating a fraudulent cover-up to conceal its misconduct. Among the accusations, the nursing home allegedly discharged elderly and seriously ill residents onto the streets or into lower level-of-care facilities that were unable to care for them properly. The nursing home then would admit COVID-19 residents who brought in higher Medicare reimbursements. The COVID-19 residents were reimbursed an additional $600 per day.
The lawsuit claims the nursing home dumped an elderly resident with a history of dementia and wandering during the pandemic. The resident ended up 20 miles away from where his family believed that he was staying. In addition, the lawsuit claims that a disabled resident with a diagnosis of HIV was dumped and was sheltering in a friend’s backyard.
There are also claims that the nursing home failed to give some residents prescribed medications and falsely documented that the medications were administered. There were additional incidents of neglect and abuse that were not reported.
The nursing home was also accused of moving patients before notifying resident’s families. The California nursing home has agreed to pay the city $275,000 in penalties and make reforms.
The California nursing home had a previous lawsuit filed in 2019 by the city of Los Angeles after similar allegations of patient dumping. The 2019 lawsuit installed a court-appointed monitor. The new lawsuit would give the city of Los Angeles even more powers to oversee the nursing home’s operations. The monitor would allow enforcement of how many hours per day the nursing home staff spend on care for each resident. In addition, the monitor would allow the nursing home to be inspected without notice, and to allow access to resident medical records 24 hours per day.
Issue:
Every nursing facility must ensure that a resident’s discharge plan meets the needs of the resident and is safe. In the event of a facility-initiated discharge, an advance notice must be given to the resident, resident representative, and to the ombudsman. The advance notice timeframe should be either 30 days or as soon as practicable, depending on the reason for the discharge.
Discussion Points:
- Review your policy and procedure for resident discharges. Update as needed.
- Train all members of the interdisciplinary team on providing a discharge plan that meets the needs of the resident and is considered safe. Document that this training occurred and file in each employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit to ensure that discharge plans meet the needs of the resident, and that all facility-initiated discharges include an advance notice of discharge that is given to the resident, the resident’s representative, and the ombudsman.
