ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Elder Abuse in Nursing Homes
Resident Evictions
Complaints about allegedly improper evictions and discharges from nursing homes are on the rise in California according to government data. The trend is disturbing and frankly outrageous: such complaints have risen 70% in the last five years reaching 1,504 complaints during the past year alone. The San Francisco and California nursing home abuse attorneys at Evans Law Firm Inc. represent nursing home abuse victims throughout California and want to bring the disturbing trend of resident evictions to your attention. If you or someone you know is suffering from nursing home abuse in San Francisco or elsewhere in California, call the nursing home abuse attorneys at Evans Law Firm today at 415-441-8669, and we may be able to help.
Federal law allows a nursing home to discharge or evict a patient when it cannot meet the resident’s needs or the person no longer requires services; if the resident endangers the health and safety of other individuals; or if the patient has failed, after reasonable and appropriate notice, to pay. Under federal law, states must provide a “fair hearing” for nursing home residents who claim that they have been illegally evicted.
In one reported case, a patient prevailed at her reinstatement hearing before the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) but the nursing home nonetheless refused to readmit her. The State has so far failed to enforce readmission. The legal advocacy team at AARP has sued the nursing home on the patient’s behalf. According to the AARP lawsuit, the nursing home felt free to disobey the DHCS’s order because the state refuses to enforce readmission orders. One news source reported that the state fined only 7 percent of nursing homes that were found to have illegally evicted residents and that if the nursing home was fined, the fines were relatively low. The AARP is seeking an injunction to require the nursing home to readmit the patient and to stop dumping residents.
Advocates say evictions are often money-driven: Medicare covers patients for just a short time after they are released from hospitals. After that, these critics say, many nursing homes do not wish to accept the lower rates paid by Medicaid, the public insurance program for low-income residents. Even when evicted patients appeal and win, advocates say, it doesn’t always help the patient. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to one report, has advised California on two occasions — including this past summer — that it must enforce decisions from appeals hearings. (The state contends that it uses a variety of strategies to enforce the law.)
In addition to evictions, nursing home abuse also includes neglect, physical and emotional abuse, abandonment, negligent and reckless care, overmedication, denial of services, and sexual abuse. The San Francisco and California nursing home abuse attorneys at Evans Law Firm Inc. represent victims and their families in all manner of nursing home abuse cases.
Contact Us
If you or a loved one is or has been the victim of nursing home abuse in San Francisco or elsewhere in California, contact Ingrid Evans and the other nursing home abuse attorneys at the Evans Law Firm at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. We can help guide your case through a jury trial or toward an equitable settlement. We handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistleblower law, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
