Nursing homes all over the country are evicting residents. According to the Wall Street Journal, complaints about these discharge practices have doubled over the past decade, which makes it the second biggest category of nursing home abuse complaints. How can they do this?
There are, of course, circumstances where nursing homes will evict residents, but many elderly advocates say that these nursing homes are taking advantage of them. They are getting rid of their most expensive patients. For that reason, residents with dementia who have demanding families and especially those whose bills are covered through Medicaid are most likely to be turned out of nursing homes. According to the Wall Street Journal, patients on Medicaid only bring in half the revenue of those using personal insurance or Medicare.
Federal law gives six reasons for which a nursing home resident can be discharged involuntarily: if they are well enough to go home, need care that is only available somewhere else, if they endanger the health of others or the safety of others, fail to pay their bills, or if a facility closes its doors.
Still, some nursing homes are evicting residents who may be “uncooperative” or “unmanageable” or “unduly noisy”. And that just isn’t right!
When they do evict residents, nursing homes are required to give 30 days’ notice and explain their appeal rights, as well as put together a plan to make sure the move won’t hurt the resident. However, more often than not, nursing homes start “dumping” undesirable residents to other homes or sending them to a hospital and refusing to take them back.
What I want to know is, how can they do this to the elderly???
