Editor Note
There is a big elephant in the room hospitals, nursing homes, states and the federal government ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT!
When a nursing home resident is transferred to a general acute care hospital, federal and state rules require the bed be held for up to 7 days. If the hospitalization exceeds 7 days, the facility must nonetheless provide the resident with the first available bed in the nursing home after he or she is cleared for return.
So all over the US covid-19 patients were and are being retured back to nursing homes.
The news media is NOT telling you the facts.
Nursing-home administrators have various reasons for hospital dumping: perhaps the residents require more care or have behavioral issues, such as emotional agitation or abusive outbursts.
One thing is sure, the residents either don’t have any money—or they have run out of the money they had.
Whatever the reason, the nursing home just leaves the resident in the hospital.
According to law, if a nursing home can’t meet a resident’s medical needs, the nursing home staff should call the state department of health and senior services.
But it’s quicker and cheaper (for the nursing home) to simply dump the patient on the hospital.
{How many nursing homes dumped their covid-19 patients to hospitals?}
Rules being broken without consequence
Nursing home abuse lawyers say that facilities around the country are breaking the rules when it comes to evicting nursing home residents. Those rules, as defined by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 42 CFR 483, require that facilities must permit residents to remain unless:- The transfer or discharge is necessary for the resident’s welfare and the resident’s needs cannot be met in the facility;
- The transfer or discharge is appropriate because the resident’s health has improved sufficiently so the resident no longer needs the services provided by the facility;
- The safety of individuals in the facility is endangered;
- The health of individuals in the facility would otherwise be endangered;
- The resident has failed, after reasonable and appropriate notice, to pay for (or to have paid under Medicare or Medicaid) a stay at the facility. For a resident who becomes eligible for Medicaid after admission to a facility, the facility may charge a resident only allowable charges under Medicaid; or
- The facility ceases to operate.
When one of the
above occurs, federal law also requires everything to be documented to
avoid foul play.
Unfortunately, many facilities simply don’t follow
those rules and transfer or discharge patients they just don’t want to
care for anymore. There have been numerous reports of nursing home
facilities falsely accusing residents of violence, forging documentation
in order to get rid of unwanted patients or, believe it or not, dumping
patients into a hospital emergency department and then refusing to take
them back. Unfortunately, many patients, or their families, don’t know
that filing a lawsuit is an option. Not surprisingly, the patients
generally are not informed of their right to the 30-day eviction notice.
Nursing home residents who are transferred,
dumped, or evicted from long-term care facilities are victims of
nursing home abuse.
These issues, which are far more common than most
people think, are especially troubling because nursing home and assisted
living facility residents and their families often simply don’t know
they have rights and can fight back. Nurses, as patient
advocates, ought to know this—and all discharge planners need to be
aware of both the practice and the patient’s rights.
Ultimately, the
responsibility resides with the state, and until the state has been
informed and other arrangements made, the patient must not, ever, just
be dumped—by nursing home or hospital.
Editor Bonus Note
I have first hand knowledge of some things that have gone on in a few nursing home.
A big problem is a family member taking a nursing home patient's home, money and everything else they have while keeping them in the dark about what they are doing.
I know of a lady in a nursing home who trusted her daughter to handle her estate.
Her daughter and her boyfriend sold her mothers's home and everything in it without her knowledge or approval! They stole everything!
This happens all the time. Family members steal everything a nursing home patient has if the nursing home patient has given their consent for the family member to control the finances. This is a blank check for abuse!
When you are admitted to a nursing home you are at risk for abuse from your family and or the nursing home.
A hidden fact could put you in a nursing home at a young age.
If after being in a hospital for some reason, surgery etc and its time to be discharged but there is no family member to take care of you or a family member is not willing to take care of you guess where you will go?
Thats right to a nursing home. Are you shocked?
If you are not able to take care of yourself and no one else will you could be headed for a nursing home.
The state and fed government will pay for the nursing home to "take care of you".
If you have a greedy family member that you have let handle your money etc you might end up with nothing and staying in a nursing home!
Thats enough to keep you awake at night, I hope, thinking about planning ahead in case you are caught in this situation.
I would try to find an honest lawyer to talk to about this possibility.
If you are already in a nursing home, for whatever reason, bad state and federal laws allow hospitals to send nursing home patients back to nursing homes.
Could this mean that hospitals send covid-19 patients back to nursing home?
Not if they can hide this fact.
Or the nursing home hospital patient could be covid-19 and coming back to the nursing home from a hospital or even a home where someone has covid-19.
If you are in a nursing home you are at a bigger risk to get sick from a patient being admitted or readmitted to where you are.
This is another big elephant in the room nobody is talking about also.
In a hospital you would be isolated from covid-19 patients.
In a nursing home you don't know who may have covid-19 and are not isolated.
This is one reason why a nursing home has more deaths from covid-19.
Another major reason is many patient in nursing home also have underlying health conditions that kill them when the get the covid-19.
Another major reason is covid-19 spreads faster in a nursing home because patients are not isolated enough.
During the covid-19 pandemic the nursing home will not let you visit a patient so you can't help feed your loved one or check on them.
A total recipe for death in a nursing home.
How many nursing homes have killed their patients?
How many hospitals have condemned their patients to death in a nursing home?
The bottom line for hospitals and nursing homes is the money.
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