“Improving the quality of care in nursing homes is a constant challenge. More transparency, better enforcement and improved staff training are needed, and this legislation works to make changes in those areas and improve the quality of life of nursing home residents and to empower the family members and loved ones of those residents,” Grassley said.

Grassley and Kohl also released a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled “Medicare and Medicaid Participating Facilities: CMS Needs to Reexamine Its Approach for Oversight of Health Care Facilities.” The report suggests that the survey and certification system is significantly under-funded relative to the scope of its oversight responsibilities, which have greatly expanded in recent years.

The report found that because of resource constraints, some facilities have been receiving inspections once every ten years rather than yearly. The Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act seeks to strengthen the federal government’s survey and certification system.

Grassley and Kohl have worked together previously to improve nursing home quality by heading up the government’s new five-star nursing home rating system and releasing the Special Focus Facility program participant list, which names the 135 worst nursing homes in the country.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Grassley, Kohl reintroduce legislation to improve care at nursing homes

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The Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act is sponsored by New Mexico’s senior senator, Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis.

This process could greatly reduce the number of nursing home abuse and neglect cases that plague the long-term care industry. These are tragedies we hear about daily in the news, like the report two days ago of the Jacksonville, Ill., woman suing her father’s nursing home for his wrongful death just 19 days after he was admitted; or the painfully sad story last month of the four nursing home aides in Minnesota who taunted and molested 15 residents suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia simply to “get a good laugh.”

“This bill is an important step in providing the safeguards needed to prevent abuse and mistreatment by those who care for our elderly and disabled,” Sen. Domenici was quoted as saying in The Daily Times. “I hope the Senate will pass it during this legislative session.”

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Senate to consider Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention bill

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“We believe the vast majority of nursing homes are doing a very good job and working hard to deliver quality care,” Sen. Kohl told the committee. “But we must protect the rights of those who receive inadequate care to hold the facilities accountable.” He said the bill would “send a strong message to underperforming facilities that harmful care is not acceptable.”

Sen. Martinez said the practice of nursing homes requiring residents to sign mandatory arbitration agreements is an overreach of the original purpose of the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which he says provides for voluntary arbitration agreements. Requiring a mandatory arbitration agreement as a condition of admittance to a facility is taking advantage of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, he said.

“I was a practicing attorney for many years, and I believe alternative dispute resolution is a legitimate way to resolve disputes,” Sen. Martinez said, “but it should apply to … people in similar positions when entering an agreement to arbitrate. Prospective nursing home residents – our nation’s most vulnerable population – should not be forced to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of being admitted to a nursing home.”

Senators Martinez and Kohl pointed out that when patients and their families are at the point of entering a nursing home facility, the patient often is in need of immediate care. Sometimes there are no alternative facilities in close proximity to the patient’s home. Families feel they must sign the agreement in order to ensure their loved one gets needed care right away. Most, they say, do not realize they are relinquishing their rights to go to court.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, spoke in opposition of the bill. He expressed concern that removing arbitration arrangements from nursing homes will cause a rise in long term liability costs and ultimately result in a worse quality of care for the nation’s elderly. He said he believes the proposed Senate bill will result in small business owners going out of business and less well-off seniors unable to afford resulting higher prices.

“I am deeply concerned about nursing home abuse,” Sen. Hatch said. “The abuse of a patient’s trust cannot be tolerated.” However, he said, he feels the problems are being addressed by the nursing home industry.

Sen. Martinez disagrees. Arbitration, he says, “remov[es] the one incentive the industry has to self-regulate and police itself and provide a level of care that I believe is what all of us would like to see for our most vulnerable residents.”

A webcast of the meeting is available at the web site for the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › U.S. Senate debates arbitration

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Other states on the “worst reporting” list are Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota.

Results of the report were published in the New York Times May 15, which says the study “reveals a widespread ‘understatement of deficiencies’ including malnutrition, severe bedsores, overuse of prescription medications, and nursing home resident abuse.”

The study was requested by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis., Chairman, Senate Special Committee on Aging). They have introduced a bill to upgrade nursing home care and increase penalties for federal standards violations.

Beasley Allen hears from people every day who are shocked and grieved to find their loved ones have suffered at the hands of the very people they expect to provide expert care and compassion. Certainly, increasing penalties seems like a step in the right direction.

David P. Sloane, a spokesperson for the AARP, which lobbies for older Americans, praises the effort, quoted by the Times as saying it is “one of the most significant nursing home reform initiatives” in two decades.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Alabama Among Worst

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