California Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog
Over the last year, California assisted living facilities have been under intense scrutiny by elder care advocates and the public alike. Just last month, California legislators appeared at a press conference in Sacramento to unveil plans for new bills that will encourage assisted living facility reforms throughout the state. The reforms will come “as part of the RCFE Reform Act of 2014,” according to a press release from the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR).
As you might recall, an RCFE is a residential care facility for the elderly. In California, RCFEs, also known as assisted living facilities, are responsible for a lower level of care than a nursing home, but they must still be licensed with the state. According to the Department of Social Services, RCFEs can “provide care, supervision and assistance with activities of daily living, such as bathing and grooming.” They can also “provide incidental medical services under special care plans,” but they can’t administer significant medical treatment or care.
The reforms may be able to curb certain acts of elder abuse in our state, but it’s still important to keep an eye out for signs of nursing home abuse and neglect if you have an elderly loved one in a facility.
First, it’s important to have a clear idea about why hospices are bringing in relatively healthy older adults, and how these companies are profiting from non-terminal patients. How did this start to happen? In short, many hospice care centers have begun recruiting patients with aggressive marketing tactics, and many of those patients aren’t terminal. It’s in the financial interest of a hospice chain to “find patients well before death,” the Washington Post reported. And the reason is simple: “Medicare pays a hospice about $150 a day per patient for routine care, regardless of whether the company sends a nurse or any other worker out that day. That means healthier patients, who generally need less help and live longer, yield more profits.”
If residential facilities are not held to the fines levied against them by the California Department of Social Services when they’re found to have committed elder abuse or elder neglect, what is to stop these care homes from behaving negligently? It can be difficult to know whether a loved one has been subject to nursing home abuse and neglect, but it’s always a good idea to speak to an elder justice advocate. If you believe an older adult has been the victim of elder neglect, you should contact an experienced 
When we think about transitioning an elderly loved one into a nursing home or an assisted-living facility, we expect that the facility will provide care and won’t engage in acts of nursing home abuse or neglect. However, 
It’s no secret that 
