Abandoned Nursing Home Residents?

Kaiser Health News (KHN) ran a story titled The Agonizing Limbo Of Abandoned Nursing Home Residents. The story focuses on the refusal of some California nursing homes to readmit residents after a hospital stay.  The story opens with a story of one resident who “had been living[in a nursing home] for four years… [and] the home refused to readmit him, even after being ordered to do so by the state. Nearly nine months later, [the resident] is still in the hospital.”  It seems that these residents are trapped in a sort of limbo.

Nursing home residents are entitled to hearings under federal law to determine whether they should be readmitted after hospitalization. The state Department of Health Care Services holds the administrative hearings, but has said it is not responsible for enforcing the rulings.

But the state Department of Public Health, which oversees nursing homes, neglects to enforce the rulings and sometimes disagrees with them, according to advocates and court documents.

That leaves residents …. [even those] who won … [the]  hearing …. with little recourse — and not many places to go. And since many nursing home residents have publicly-funded insurance, it means taxpayers are on the hook for hospital stays long after the patients are ready for discharge.

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) in November, 2015 filed suit against California Health & Human Services on behalf of some of these residents with an upcoming hearing in March of 2016. The suit seeks “to require California to establish a hearing process that complies with federal law and to enforce the rulings.” The defendant has filed a motion to dismiss.