Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
A false claim may result from knowingly misrepresenting services provided to residents as well as presenting false information to investigators from federal programs.
Earlier this week, a former Director of Nurses at a rehabilitation center was convicted of falsifying records, but was not sentenced to prison. Instead, she received a “conditional discharge.” One of the conditions of that discharge is that along with the felony conviction, the woman faces losing her nursing license, and she is disallowed from working for any healthcare program funded by the government.
The woman was charged with deliberately misleading an investigator from the Department of Health by providing a patient’s record that indicated the staff nurses had followed the patient’s care plan and monitored the patient accordingly. Unfortunately, the patient was not monitored as required and experienced repeated falls. A serious injury after one fall resulted in hospitalization and wound stapling to the patient’s head. Although the patient was able to be returned to the facility, his stay was cut short because he experienced “respiratory failure and pneumonia” after again being discovered “sitting on the floor.”
The trial lasted six days and even though it resulted in a conviction, the sentencing of conditional discharge reflected the court’s finding that the woman was not directly involved with the “patient’s neglect or injuries.”
