Healthcare Compliance Alert:
False claims result from billing Medicare and Medicaid for services that are either worthless or not rendered at all. A Compliance Officer must ensure that a provider’s quality of care audits are authentic and accurate.
After a veteran of the Vietnam War and a retired police officer died in a VA hospital, one of the hospital’s staff told the man’s wife that his death was the result of his heart stopping; consequently, nothing could have been done to help. Later the veteran’s wife heard from a doctor that the hospital failed to provide the care her husband needed.
According to the doctor and another person, on the night that the man died, the nurse aide who was supposed to monitor the man periodically throughout the night did not do so. Instead, she is reported to have been playing video games on her computer. It has also been noted that the next morning when a nurse discovered that the man was deceased, she made an inappropriate gesture some use to convey “slitting the throat” to indicate that the man was dead.
The inspector general for the VA began a “criminal investigation to identify how the system may have failed.”
The aide initially insisted and signed a statement to the effect that she had monitored the man as she was required. Later, she had to admit that she never left her computer during her shift because video coverage of her showed that she did not provide the care of the patient that was required. There have been several reported complaints by families of veterans and whistleblower employees claiming that many patients have deteriorated rapidly after they were admitted. Also, complaints allege that some veterans are going without nutrition for long periods of time and are not being provided with clean clothes. There has also been concern expressed regarding asbestos in the building.
The nurse and aide involved in the incident have been suspended and may be terminated.
VA officials have indicated that they will be holding employees accountable when they do not perform their jobs appropriately.
