Complaints About Nursing Home Evictions Rise, and Regulators Take Note
Federal law stipulates that a nursing home must follow the same policies and practices for the discharge and transfer of residents, “regardless of source of payment.” But, legal advocates say, nursing homes often begin to pressure residents to leave when their Medicare coverage — which pays nursing homes at a higher rate
but for a limited period — is close to ending and may be replaced by Medicaid.
But the regulations also clearly say that the goal is to not discharge people, and they have a right to stay there and receive care.”
Bill Wilson, a lawyer representing the nursing home where Ms. Zwaschka-Blansfield was a resident,
said he could not comment on the specifics of her discharge because of privacy laws.
While nursing homes can discharge residents for a limited set of reasons, legal advocates say
that home operators sometimes interpret those reasons in unjustified ways.
Nursing homes receive about $200 a day for a Medicaid patient on average, compared with about $500 for a patient in the traditional Medicare program
and $430 for a Medicare patient in a managed care plan.
Even when nursing homes are cited for violations, he said, they frequently “get a modest fine, and it’s often a cost of doing business.”
Dr. David R. Gifford, a senior vice president of the American Health Care Association, a trade group for nursing homes, said the perception
that residents were being moved against their will for financial reasons was wrong.
Alan Schoen, a 58-year-old resident with multiple sclerosis at a nursing home in Stockton, Calif., said
he believed the facility was trying to discharge him because his Medicare coverage was ending.