Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect

In my previous posts on this important subject, I wrote of the growing number of Massachusetts nursing homes that are making advertising and marketing claims that they “specialize” in caring for Alzheimer’s Disease patients and other patients suffering from dementia. They like to use terms such as “Memory Care Center,” “Alzheimer’s Specialty Units,” and similar.

I’ve previously warned my readers not to buy this marketing so quickly. Over 60% of it is pure lies: Gross exaggerations that seek to capitalize on the growing population of people suffering from dementia. This week, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (Mass. DPH) announced the enactment of regulations that (in theory) prohibit Massachusetts nursing care centers and nursing homes from making these claims, unless they have first complied with certain qualifications.

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In my previous post on this important subject, I discussed how many Massachusetts nursing home centers, have in the recent past begun to advertise themselves as “Alzheimer’s Care Centers,” or claim that they “specialize” in caring for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease or other forms of dementia. Many will adopt names such as “Memory Care Centers,” and similar. You’re seeing this sudden increase in such advertisements, because of businesses seeking to maximize profits from the exponential increase among the population in the number of people being afflicted with Alzheimer’s and similar memory-related disorders or dementia.

Much of this Massachusetts nursing home advertising is false, driven by nothing more than the never-ceasing corporate desire to take advantage of new profits – at almost any cost (the truth being the least important.) As revealed in my previous post on this problem, the Alzheimer’s Association of Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire recently released a study showing that almost 60 percent of nursing homes make such false claims, and are engaging in false advertising. Worse still, these businesses – many owned by large chains – are flagrantly violating state laws designed prohibiting nursing homes from making false claims about their nursing and patient care services.

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Make a buck – at any cost. That’s what drives so many businesses, whether it’s product manufacturing or service providers. False or misleading advertising? Means nothing to most businesses.

But it should, especially when it comes to caring for the most vulnerable members of society: The elderly and those suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia. Yet, still, it doesn’t. Exhibit “A“: The rapid rise in the number of Massachusetts residents and other Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. As the population ages and lives longer, the increase in elderly people who become afflicted with this horrid disease (and even relatively younger people in their fifties,) is exploding exponentially. And with this explosion of Alzheimer’s victims, comes an economic opportunism that in some cases is even criminal: Nursing homes who advertise that they “specialize” in the care of Alzheimer’s patients – when they don’t have any such “specialty.” Many of these Massachusetts nursing homes even call themselves Alzheimer’s “Care Centers.”

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In my previous post on this subject, I wrote of the disturbing trend of out-of-state corporations buying up smaller and struggling Massachusetts nursing homes – with extremely disturbing – not to mention unconscionable – results. One particularly egregious example of this new practice is found with a New Jersey and Florida company called Synergy Health Centers. They’ve bought up at least ten Massachusetts nursing facilities – almost all experiencing drastic decreases in patient care from the moment Synergy Health took over.

Some examples that state regulators have discovered:

• Elderly left to soak in their own urine and feces (New England Health Center, Sunderland Massachusetts.)

As a Boston injury lawyer, there’s one thing I cannot stomach or tolerate, and that’s the abuse or neglect of a patient in a nursing home, or “skilled nursing facility.” Most people I know dread the thought of visiting the majority of these places – and with good reason: Unless the facility is one of the most expensive, highly-rated nursing homes in Massachusetts, what happens inside these places would likely shock you.

Such as what? Try to think of the following (warning: You’ll need a strong stomach for what follows)::

• Urine-soaked diapers being left on a patient for hours on end. Even worse – feces-soaked diapers.

In Massachusetts right now, there’s a bit of a war going on between the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As is so often the case, while the consumer is the party who is supposedly is designed to benefit from these regulatory skirmishes, that isn’t always what results.

Have you ever noticed these ‘Assisted Living Facilities’ when driving around Massachusetts (or elsewhere,) and wondered, “What are these places?” Well, in theory, they were developed about 15-20 or so years ago as a kind of an alternative to a nursing home, for primarily elderly residents who need some kind of care outside their families’ homes, but weren’t so seriously disabled that they needed a nursing home or skilled nursing facility with round-the-clock care. These facilities – or real estate developments as many would call them – supposedly offered primarily elderly residents (or otherwise infirmed persons) an alternative environment to a nursing home. In theory, many such residents would need limited assistance – perhaps to bathe or similar functions – and many would hire their own part-time nurse, Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN,) or nurses’ aide to come in for a few hours every day to help with these daily living functions. In practice, many assisted living facilities operate more like apartment complexes that have almost exclusively elderly residents, than anything else. Advocates for the elderly have criticized this practice, saying it’s an essentially low-ball way to make money off elderly patients – without being regulated as nursing homes or skilled nursing facilities.

This ‘sub-nursing home’ option became quite popular with the public, for a variety of reasons: 1) The primary one is that the cost for an assisted living facility is usually far less than that for a nursing home of skilled nursing facility. 2) Next, in theory at least, these facilities offered the resident a greater degree of independence and autonomy; but 3) – and as a Massachusetts nursing home neglect attorney, in my opinion this next one is very important – they offer the adult children of the elderly parents that they place in these facilities, a ‘way out’ of the guilt that usually results when placing an aging parent in a traditional nursing home. So, for a variety of reasons, assisted living facilities have grown rapidly, to the point now where approximately 14,000 in Massachusetts live in these facilities across the state. These facilities are regulated by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs – but trust me, as a Dedham Massachusetts nursing home lawyer – the oversight to date hasn’t exactly been strict or aggressive. However, it looks like that’s about to change, and that’s what the current battle between the state, the nursing home industry and the assisted living facilities is all about.

A couple of events occurred recently that bring about this post and another post to follow on the subject of Massachusetts nursing home abuse. The first occurred just a couple of days ago, when a Middlesex County jury returned a verdict against a nursing home in a shocking case of patient neglect and abuse. While the amount of damages awarded in the verdict was shocking, what was even more shocking were the underlying facts that prompted the verdict against the nursing home, and the damages that were awarded to the plaintiff’s family: $14 million. This is the largest nursing home-related verdict in Massachusetts in at least ten years, according to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, which reports on such verdicts.

Powerfully illustrating the shocking level of patient neglect and abuse in this case, $12.5 million was for punitive damages – damages that a jury or judge awards to punish the defendant for the particular wrongdoing alleged. Of the $14 million awarded to the plaintiff’s family, $1.5 million was earmarked for compensatory damages – to compensate the victim for pain and suffering.

Who was the victim in this story? An old woman by the name of Genevieve Calandro. Of course, she was once a young woman, vibrant and in full. Perhaps beautiful; perhaps passionate; perhaps funny; perhaps witty. But not when she was a patient in the now-defunct nursing home: Radius Health Care Center, once located in Danvers. There, she was a frail, weak, vulnerable old woman. She needed the dedicated and gentle care of the “nursing home professionals” that had been paid to care for her. And what happened instead was, literally, a nightmare.

The rapidly growing population of people afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease, has, both fortunately and unfortunately, given rise to a new sub-industry of the broader nursing home industry: “Alzheimer’s Care Centers,” and “Alzheimer’s Specialty Facilities.” With names like these (and similar,) the public has been led to believe that these facilities possess some type of “specialty” designation or certification, isolated medical credentialing, or particular and highly –focused training. For years, families have placed their trust in these nursing homes and care centers, believing they had specialized skills and insights that a “regular” Massachusetts nursing home wouldn’t have.

In most instances, those beliefs were induced by nothing more than slick marketing language, targeting an ever-growing medical market for this ever-growing patient population. The reality behind the marketing? Aside from the advertising, most of these facilities possessed little more substantive knowledge or nursing home patient care skills than the “average” nursing home. That’s the ‘unfortunate’ part of this growing industry: It capitalizes on an exploding market with claims of “unique” skills and “specialized patient care” for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients – when in reality most of them neither possess nor practice any more substantive care regimens or skill sets than “ordinary” nursing homes.

Thankfully, a great step forward was taken today, when the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (Mass. DPH) finalized new regulations for the care of dementia patients. The standards were originally proposed in August 2013 by the Massachusetts DPH. Those standards were finalized today by the Massachusetts Public Health Council, which is a state-appointed group of academic and public health experts that sets policy standards in areas of public health. The impetus for these new standards was a bill passed by the Massachusetts Legislature almost two years ago, requiring minimum training and qualification standards for specialized dementia care units. As part of the new regulations, facilities will be required to have at least one “therapeutic activities director” dedicated to the dementia unit, to ensure meaningful and appropriate activities for residents.

I have published posts previously on the subject of Massachusetts nursing homes prescribing anti-psychotic drugs to patients who are not psychotic, but rather suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia-related medical conditions. In Massachusetts in recent years, this practice was exposed in federal court for what it really was: A kickback scheme between anti-psychotic drug manufacturers (notably Johnson & Johnson,) and nursing home operators, who received increased financial payments if they “pushed” these drugs onto patients, many times in the absence of medical need.

Thankfully, public awareness of this problem is growing. Care One and HealthBridge Management corporations, which own nursing homes in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, have become the focus of a newspaper and internet advertising campaign by a nursing home patient advocacy organization called HealthbridgeWatch.org, and careonewatch.org. The nursing home patient advocacy campaigns are warning people that nursing homes run by these companies have been reported by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS,) as prescribing anti-psychotic medications to patients and residents “At rates that are higher than Massachusetts and National averages”; sometimes “Over triple the national average.” The twin advocacy organizations have reported that as many as 76% of long-term residents of these facilities, who are not psychotic, are administered these powerful and dangerous drugs, despite the FDA’s warning against this practice. HealthBridge Management owns or operates several nursing homes here in Massachusetts, but at least three that HealthBridgeWatch.org has reported as prescribing these drugs to a high degree include the Newton Health Care Center, the Lowell Health Care Center, and the Holyoke Rehabilitation Center.

In my experience as a Boston, Massachusetts nursing home neglect and abuse lawyer, anyone who either has a loved one in a nursing home owned or operated by these corporations, or by other owners, would be wise to seek immediate clarification of whether their family member or loved one has ever been given anti-psychotic drugs, or any similar drugs belonging to the class of anti-psychotic drugs.

File this under “Your Taxpayer Dollars At Work.” … Or, as I’ve been thinking recently about doing with this blog, creating a new category of post called “Outrage Of The Day.”

According to a recent article in The Boston Globe, in 2009 Medicare paid approximately $5.1 Billion in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes across the United States — including Massachuetts. That’s a staggering number. If it went to truly help the elderly and infirmed patients at these nursing homes, that would be money well spent. But there’s more to this story, and it isn’t good.

Those taxpayer dollars apparently went to sub-par nursing homes that reportedly were not meeting the most basic requirements necessary to look after their residents, according to government investigators. As a Boston nursing home neglect and abuse lawyer, I believe that these nursing homes could very well be perpetrators of the nursing home neglect, negligence and abuse that we as a Boston, Massachusetts nursing home neglect law firm see all too frequently.