California Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer BlogA petition has recently been drafted by a national, non-profit consumer advocacy organization that bans nursing homes from using arbitration agreements. This petition has been addressed to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), urging them to cease the use of pre-dispute, forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts. The petition has been swiftly gaining support, and as a public citizen, you can add your voice to the thousands of others who have already stood up for this critical issue.
Articles Posted in nursing home news
Nursing Homes are Giving Patients an Inappropriate Amount of Therapy for the Sake of Medicare Benefits
Nursing home patients who receive what is deemed as “ultra high” therapy—at least 720 minutes per week—generate many nursing homes’ largest payments from Medicare. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of billing records, Medicare’s ultrahigh rate was estimated to be about $560 per day in 2013. The estimate was $445 per day for “very high” therapy of 500 to 719 minutes and $325 for what was deemed the “low” category, 45 to 149 minutes.
The Increasing Difficulty of Treating Assisted Living Facility Residents with Overlapping Diseases
According to a recent government study reported in The New York Times, 82% of residents who live in assisted living facilities suffer from at least one of the three most common chronic conditions: Alzheimer’s disease, high blood pressure and heart disease. The alarming way in which these ailments overlap has triggered an important new field of study.
Over 733,000 people reside in American assisted living facilities. These facilities provide care for people who need help performing their daily activities, such as dressing, but do not require the more intensive services of a nursing home.
Not only did the study find that more than half the residents are ages 85 and older, researchers were shocked that so many were in need of medical care. In a data brief, the researchers reported, “These findings suggest a vulnerable population with a high burden of functional and cognitive impairment.”
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Nursing Homes are Failing to Properly Manage Patients’ Blood Thinner Medications
It has recently been discovered that patients are being hospitalized and dying due to nursing homes’ failure to properly manage the blood thinner Coumadin. The federal government is now instructing health inspectors across America to be vigilant in spotting these errors by nursing homes.
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Drinking Coffee in Moderation Enhances Memory
Researchers of a recent study reported in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease examined over 1,400 Italian seniors from ages 65 to 84 and found interesting associations between coffee consumption and risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). They found that people who consistently drank one to two cups of coffee per day had lower rates of MCI than those who rarely or never drank coffee. However, those who habitually drank over two cups per day did not show similar benefits.
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More Nursing Homes are Performing Basic Procedures Normally Done in the Hospital
According to a recent news article from The New York Times, nursing homes are beginning to take the hospital’s place when it comes to basic health care, preventing unnecessary hospitalizations for older adult residents. Not only does this shift in focus allow residents who do not do well in hospital settings to remain in the comfort of their nursing home, it can also prevent unnecessary hazards that could seriously diminish a patient’s quality of life, such as falls, stubborn infections, the development of delirium from unfamiliar environments and pharmaceuticals, and conditional deterioration due to inactivity. Residents can also avoid experiencing functional loss, including cognitive ability that may never be recovered, especially if the resident is already developing dementia.
Pet Therapy as an Approach to Improve Nursing Home Residents’ Quality of Life
A nursing home in St. Paul, Minnesota is giving its residents something to smile about every day—an employee’s teacup poodle. Nala, who has become the nursing home’s perky mascot, lovingly interacts with the residents on a daily basis, riding the nursing home’s elevator and leaping onto wheelchairs and beds to greet patients. Although Nala is not formally trained as a therapy dog, she has never failed to bring joy and comfort to the older adult residents at the Lyngblomsten care home.
Beware of Nursing Home Facilities that Advertize False Claims Regarding their Care
60% of Massachusetts nursing homes have been found to advertise misleading statements about their services. A review by the Alzheimer’s Association of Massachusetts and New Hampshire has reported that these nursing homes have claimed that they can meet the care needs of dementia patients when, in fact, this cannot be further from the truth. Inspections proved that more than 100 of these facilities did not meet state requirements.
Legal Action Filed Against National Nursing Home Chain that Abuses Residents
Far too many nursing homes fail to keep their promise to provide quality care for their residents. With 300 Golden Living Centers nationwide, Golden Gate National Senior Care LLC is one such nursing home company that has failed to provide basic services to their vulnerable, older adult residents. Last Wednesday, authorities in Pennsylvania filed a legal action against the company, saying that Golden Living Center residents were left in soiled diapers for unacceptably long periods of time, were at high risk for bedsores, and were not bathed routinely. Residents were also not escorted to meals as required, often missing meals entirely, and staff have been proven to falsify records.
New Rules to Five Star Keep Nursing Homes on Their Toes
A new stringent system is waiting to be implemented by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to Nursing Home Compare that will lower the cut-off points regarding the attainment of certain star levels. The system calls for 11 new quality measures that threaten to jeopardize star ratings of as many as 15% of nursing home facilities that could result in their immediate loss of one or two stars. The CMS has not yet disclosed exactly how many facilities will be affected. However, the matter will be discussed at its Skilled Nursing Open Door Forum today, at 2 p.m. ET.
