Medicare changed the rules for paying skilled nursing facilities in hopes of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead of rewarding therapy volume, the new payment model placed more weight on patient diagnoses and clinical complexity. That was the intent. A recent Forbes piece highlights what happened next: facilities began coding residents as having more illnesses
ProPublica reported on Joseph Schwartz. Schwartz was found guilty for running a $39 million payroll tax scheme connected to his nursing home. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison. A content and fairly young Doris Coulson liked to watch cooking shows and show her granddaughter off at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center. Unfortunately,
Just last week, McKnights reported a federal watchdog confirmed the fears of many nursing home residents’ family members: their loved ones were being drugged. Probably because of unsafe and short staffing levels. A review of 40 nursing homes found that staff tends to diagnose healthy patients with Schizophrenia simply so they can administer antipsychotic sedative
The latest U.S. News analysis highlighting staffing shortages in nursing homes does not reveal anything surprising to those of us who routinely litigate these cases. Instead, it confirms what families and plaintiff-side attorneys see time and time again when something goes wrong inside a long-term care facility: chronic understaffing is almost always the root cause
Medical directors have long been one of the least examined roles in nursing home oversight, but regulators are beginning to take a harder look at whether they are actually engaged in resident care or simply filling a contractual requirement on paper. According to a recent McKnight’s report, compliance efforts are now turning toward how much
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