Articles Posted in Falsifying Records

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Two registered nurses and one certified nurse aid were convicted in a Nassau County courtroom for willful violation of health laws in a tragic case that led to the death of an 81-year-old nursing home resident at A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility in Unionville, NY, according to LongIsland.com. According to prosecutors, the elderly resident – both ventilator-dependent and in a wheelchair – somehow became disconnected from his ventilator, rending him unable to breathe.

In situations of life-and-death, the nursing home utilizes distinct auditory and visual alarms that sound throughout the unit. Despite the sounding of the alarm and its ubiquity across the entire nursing home, the two nurses, Sijimole Reji and Annieamma Augustine, along with the certified nurse aid, Martine Morland, did not respond for a full nine minutes. By the time the ventilator was reconnected, the elderly woman was unconscious and passed away the next day.

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Only two weeks after putting a Buffalo nursing home under conservatorship, the New York Department of Health announced that Emerald North and Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center will be closing their doors. The closure follows a long line of missteps and scandals by the formerly for-profit nursing homes, according to The Buffalo News. In the last year, an elderly woman was beaten to death in the facility’s dementia unit and another nursing home resident died after falling from a third-story window. The two nursing homes, which are owned by the same for-profit organization, were fined over $100,000 in 2017 for not maintaining accurate records on whether patients wanted to be revived in the event of a medical emergency. Tragically, the nursing home’s gross misstep was only discovered after a revived patient was found to have a “do not resuscitate” order.

The nursing homes, which have below average ratings by Medicare, continued to operate with the blessing of the Department of Health for almost an entire year after these scandals. Last month, the Department of Health finally appointed Grand Healthcare System as the nursing homes new operator. At the time of the government agency’s appointment, nursing home residents and their families criticized the appointment of another for-profit nursing home system. Their concerns proved well-founded when Grand Healthcare System announced it would be shutting down both nursing homes and opening new facilities under a different name.

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Nursing home residents nearing the end of their lives are increasingly being sent to rehabilitation therapy for their final weeks of life. According to a new study published in the Journal of American Medical Directors Association, senior citizens at for-profit nursing homes are twice as likely to spend their last days at a rehabilitation center instead of a hospice. According to elder care experts, the primary motivation for forcing senior citizens through rehabilitation during their last days involves churning a profit for the nursing home, according to The New York Times. Rehabilitation services, such as physical, occupational, and speech therapy, are a significant source of revenue for nursing homes. Sending a resident to hospice for palliative care, on the other hand, ends the revenue stream for that resident.

The study’s appalling conclusions found that 14 percent of New York nursing home residents received some form of rehabilitation in the month before they passed away. Four percent received a significant amount of therapy each week – between 325 minutes to 12 hours each week – in their final month. Medicare typically covers rehabilitation services and the highest payouts go towards senior citizens receiving 12 hours of rehabilitation each week, or “ultrahigh levels” according to Medicaid. Disturbingly, the number of senior citizens receiving “ultrahigh levels” of rehabilitation in their final month increased 65 percent between 2012 to 2016.

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wallet-300x225The Attorney General’s Office in New York announced the indictment of two Brooklyn men for running a massive scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid recipients from healthcare clinics in the Bronx and Manhattan. According to the Attorney General, Tea Kaganovich and Ramazi Mitiashvili, operated three separate companies, Sophisticated Imaging, Inc., East Coast Diagnosists and East West Management, for the sole purpose of defrauding the federal health care system meant to care for the poor and elderly. The Brooklyn men apparently defrauded the government in the amount of $8 million dollars, often to the harm of actual New York residents who looked to the companies to treat their healthcare problems.

The clinics were located at 2423 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Manhattan and 2781 Webster Avenue in the Bronx. Responding to the charges, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, “Medicaid is meant to be a healthcare safety net for New Yorkers, not a bank account for criminals.” Continue reading

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Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has charged a Pawling nurse with failing to administer medication to three residents at Putnam Ridge Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Brewster, New York. Further, not only did the nurse, Stacey McAdams, fail to administer the necessary medication to the elderly residents at the nursing home, she also falsified medical records to conceal her actions. For these actions, the Attorney General has charged her with three counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person and three counts of falsifying business records.  In addition to these felonies, the nurse was also charged with three misdemeanor counts of a willful violation of health laws.

gavel1-300x200The charges, which were filed on October 26, 2017, allege that McAdams failed to provide medication to three different residents. She failed to provide an anti-seizure medication to a resident with a history of seizures. She also failed to provide an anticoagulant medication to a patient with a history of blood clots and a heart medication for an elderly resident with congestive heart failure and obstructive pulmonary disease. Then, according to the New York State Attorney General, McAdams intentionally falsified the records to show that each of these residents had received their medication.

“Nurses have a fundamental duty to properly administer essential medications to residents in their care and to truthfully record the circumstances,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “Neglecting care for our most vulnerable citizens will not be tolerated by my office.” Continue reading

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As part of President Trump’s promise to roll-back federal regulations, the Trump administration has announced its intention to scrap a federal rule prohibiting nursing homes from requiring their residents to pursue legal claims through arbitration.

In the simplest terms, arbitration is a catch-all term for a dispute-resolution that, while legally binding, does not utilize the court system. The practice has exploded in popularity in recent decades – especially among larger corporations and nursing homes. These entities prefer arbitration because the costs are generally lower, the dispute resolution process moves much faster than the courts, and parties generally do not have a right to appeal thus providing both parties some finality to their dispwalking-out-300x225ute. Opponents of arbitration say the extra-judicial process favors corporate interests and curtails the rights of victims – from limiting discovery to removing the opportunity to appeal. Further, arbitration also removes the right for a person to have their case heard before a jury, and instead substitutes a so-called “neutral arbitrator.”
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With toothless regulations and ineffective oversight, many nursing homes are still failing the neediest patients. With its budget for overseeing nursing homes slashed in half, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has failed to identify failing nursing homes and keep them accountable. As a consequence, some nursing homes are choosing to accept the infrequent fines instead of changing their behavior.

helpCMS is responsible for overseeing all nursing homes that receive benefits from these federal entitlement programs. CMS routinely inspects nursing homes for any violations, if a violation is found, then CMS has two options. First, CMS can put the facility on “special focus” status – reserved for the worst offenders. A nursing home with this designation would be routinely inspected more often and, supposedly, would be punished more severely for any violations. Unfortunately, federal budget cuts have blunted the amount of nursing homes that can be put under “special focus.” Since 2012, the budget for inspecting facilities with this designation has dropped by half. Consequently, despite regulators identifying 435 facilities that warranted this designation, only 88 nursing homes were actually put on the watchlist. Further, once a Continue reading

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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that Channel Francis had been indicted for five felonies relating to allegations that she assumed the identities of three nursing home patients and illegally used their credit cards.

Schneiderman alleges that Francis obtained the information from residents of the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation in Queens, New York around September 2013. According to Schneiderman, Francis then added herself as an authorized user on credit cards that were owned by the residents and proceeded to purchase iPads, computers, televisions, and designer purses on the three victims’ credit cards – spending between $3,000 and $4,700 on each of the resident’s credit cards. After being tipped off by the victim’ relatives of the unauthorized charges, the New York City Police Department opened an investigation into the elder abuse matter.

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Long-Term Care Facilities are becoming a more lucrative business in America as the country’s CEO’s compensation continue their upward trend. In 2016, the average salary for CEO’s jumped to $465,875 according to a report by The Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service. Compared to an average salary of $441,604 in 2015, this represents a 5.4 percent increase in salaries.

This increase average CEO salary of “long-term care systems” is also in-line with large year-end bonuses. In 2015, the average bonus was a very comfortable $175,000. For 2016, this number was a relatively smaller (but substantial, nonetheless) amount of $92,730.

Pay grade, predictably, varied by the size of the hospice provider. For hospices with less than $100 million in annual revenue, the average CEO’s compensation was almost $370,000. For larger providers, with annual revenues over $1 billion, the average CEO compensation jumped to $823,000.

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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that Channel Francis had been indicted for five felonies relating to allegations that she assumed the identities of three nursing home patients and illegally used their credit cards.

Schneiderman charges that Francis obtained the information from residents of the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation in Queens, New York around September 2013. According to Schneiderman, Francis then added herself as an authorized user on credit cards that were owned by the residents and proceeded to purchase iPads, computers, televisions, and designer purses on the three victims’ credit cards – spending between $3,000 and $4,700 on each of the resident’s credit cards. After being tipped off by the victim’ relatives of the unauthorized charges, the New York City Police Department opened an investigation into the matter.

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