Across the country, reports of illegal nursing-home evictions are rising. It’s called “resident dumping.” The point is to get rid of unprofitable patients, mostly those who are poor and require extra care. Here’s how it works: a patient, usually with dementia, acts out in some way—throwing a bingo chip, yelling at a staff member, knocking over a chair. The nursing home sends the patient to a hospital for psychiatric examination. After the hospital discharges the patient, the nursing home refuses to take the patient back. By getting rid of people on Medicaid and replacing them with better-insured patients, the nursing home can get an extra $1000 a day, according to a lawyer for one of the patients.
There’s no national data on nursing home evictions. States do
have nursing home ombudsmen, some of whom have said they have not seen nursing
homes dumping patients. But in 16 states, some ombudsmen say the problem is
getting worse. According to one report, problem residents are sometimes
packed into vans and then abandoned in low-budget motels, or homeless shelters,
or even onto street corners — or, in one reported instance in Maryland, into a
storage facility.
According to an ombudsman, Medicaid patients who require lots
of staff attention “have a target on their back.” Lesson: If you’re on Medicaid
and end up in a nursing home, be nice!
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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