elder care

April 8, 2016

Reexamining California’s Nursing Home Quality

Over the last couple of years, the quality of care in California nursing homes and assisted-living facilities—in effect, the salient instances of nursing home abuse—has received national attention. Back in 2013, a special report from U-T San Diego discussed the “Deadly Neglect” happening at facilities across the state. That report highlighted the need for elder safety advocates, local and national agencies, and state and federal lawmakers to take steps to ensure that the very vulnerable population of elder residents across the country begins receiving proper care. But have legislators done enough? Are California nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) taking steps to change the harmful practices that resulted in elder abuse and neglect?

According to a recent report in California Newswire, newly proposed legislation in our state suggests that, when it comes to nursing home quality in California, facilities continue to fall short. The bill (AB 2079) aims to improve patient safety at facilities throughout the state and to protect California taxpayers.

California Legislators Aim to Improve Patient Safety

March 18, 2016

Nursing Home Evictions and Elder Abuse in California

by Walton Law Firm

If you live in a nursing home, do you have the same rights as a tenant who rents a home from a landlord? According to a recent report from NPR, numerous nursing home residents who live the facility for a temporary inpatient hospital visit return to the nursing home only to learn that they have been evicted. As the article makes clear, this pattern results each year in thousands of nursing home residents finding themselves without a place to live, and that often leads to less-than-ideal situations that can involve elder abuse. Currently, federal law protects nursing home residents from these kinds of evictions, but as the article underscores, “those rules are rarely enforced by the states.” As such, California nursing home residents have decided to file claims against the state of California.

Plaintiffs File Claims Over Nursing Home Evictions

According to the NPR report, when nursing home residents cannot return to their rooms at the nursing facility, they are left with very expensive hospital bills and often the inability to receive the specific kind of care provided in a nursing home. For instance, one plaintiff who was evicted from his nursing home is currently living in his hospital room at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento. At the end of May 2015, his nursing home sent him to the hospital to receive treatment for pneumonia. However, once the pneumonia had been treated, the nursing home would not readmit him. As such, he has been living at the hospital for about 260 days now. The financial costs are very high: Medicaid is paying “about 2.5 times what his nursing home cost.”

January 15, 2016

CANHR Lawsuit Gives Power Back to Nursing Home Residents

by Walton Law Firm

What happens when a nursing home resident cannot make medical decisions for herself but she has no family members to rely upon? Last summer, we told you about a case that went before the Alameda County Superior Court, which put some of the power back in the hands of nursing home residents. A recent article in the California Health Report emphasized the far-reaching implications of this decision, and the ways in which there are both potential pros and cons for nursing home residents.

CANHR’s Case Against the California Department of Public Health (CDPH)

Before we discuss some of the recent commentary on the court decision from June of 2015, it is important to recall the key issues at stake in this case. According to the article, the advocacy group California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) filed a lawsuit against the CDPH, arguing against the constitutionality of “a California statute allowing nursing homes to make medical decisions for residents incapable of doing that for themselves and who have no family or legal representatives.”

October 7, 2015

Nursing Home Workers’ Strike Raises Questions About Care

by Walton Law Firm

If California nursing home employees go on strike, who will provide care for patients residing in the facilities? Should families of those patients have concerns about nursing home neglect? According to an article in the Marin Independent Journal, sixty nursing home workers went on strike last month in San Rafael following a string of nursing facility violations from government regulators. The strike was aimed at forcing the nursing facility to cease its understaffing practices and to encourage a work environment in which providing a threshold level of care for patients is among the most important logistics of running the facility. Even if such a strike is intended to improve conditions, who cares for patients while employees are on strike?

Understaffing and High Turnover Limits Quality of Care

The recent strike occurred at San Rafael Healthcare and Wellness Center, which is owned by Brius Healthcare Services. With more than 80 facilities in California, Brius is the largest nursing home chain in our state. For the last 18 months, employees of the nursing home have been working without having a contract. Why are employees working without a contract? About a year and a half ago, those workers rejected the terms of a union-negotiated contracted because it did not do enough to deal with the serious understaffing problem at the facility.

October 1, 2015

Senior Transportation and Elder Neglect Prevention

by Walton Law Firm

When older adults continue to live at home with help from a caregiver, elder neglect can become a serious issue. Although some caregivers have medical training and should be expected to care for the elderly in a manner that emphasizes safety, some caregivers are not properly trained and can be implicated in situations of elder abuse and neglect. These situations can become even worse when an older adult needs medical treatment and cannot rely on a caregiver for transport to a hospital or a physician’s office. That is where a new transportation service for the elderly comes in, according to a recent article from the California Health Report.

Mobility is a Significant Issue for the Elderly

Mobility is a significant issue for elderly California residents. Whether an older adult needs transportation to a medical appointment or simply to the grocery store to buy food, a new service can help. Recognizing that elderly Californians often have difficulty getting where they need to—or would like to—go, Eric Wong developed Lift Hero. Lift Hero t is a service that looks a lot like Uber or Lyft, but it is designed specifically for seniors who do not have other modes of transportation.