Elder Law

Medicare & Medicaid fraud prevalent in nursing homes

By Levin & Perconti

A new study by Americas Watchdog's Corporate Whistleblower Center shows that "things have never been worse" in the realm of Medicare & Medicaid fraud. All aspects of health care are included (click here to read more) but nursing homes make up a large portion of fraudulent behavior, magnifying the problem of nursing home neglect. Long term care facilities, nursing homes, and rehab centers have proven to be a huge drain on the American taxpayers based on fraudulent conduct. In the nursing home field, there is a mandatory minimum amount of hours that must be spent caring for each patient, each day. However, less than 50% of patients are getting the required amount of care. In addition to fraud, nursing home neglect is a serious problem and American tax dollars are paying for it! The Whistleblower center states that, "senior citizens are dying in US nursing homes, because they are in many cases not getting anything close to mandatory time/hours per day in care." Unnecessary testing of patients has also proven to be a problem of fraudulent behavior. An estimated 35% of all testing performed in nursing homes, mainly in areas like speech or cognitive testing for instance, is necessary.

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Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on January 12, 2008 (boomark / email).