VA Nursing Homes' Settlements Hidden

[Southpaw Bookworm]

How can anyone make informed decisions about health care if this information isn't available? Although I'm not surprised: Virginia is about nothing if not about the protection of corporate interests rather than the citizenry (right to work, the Smithfield cases, etc.)



In April 2004, the U.S. attorney's office for eastern Virginia agreed to what it calls an innovative settlement with a 177-bed nursing home in Fredericksburg. Instead of slapping Beverly Healthcare with a big fine for allegedly providing poor care, it required the owners to invest that money in nursing home improvements, including hiring more employees and a consultant.

All of that might be useful information for patients and families considering the facility. But as part of their settlement, government attorneys agreed not to publicize the case.

It wasn't the first time. In the past four years, the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria has settled federal allegations of poor care with the owners of seven Virginia nursing homes and two management companies.

In each case, the government agreed to keep the settlements confidential unless the nursing homes decided to go public. Only two have.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080701003.html

[Sgent]

1. I couldn't tell from the article exaclty what was going on

The US Attorney only gets involved under a few select cases -- if the action was performed by a federal employee or designee and the suit is under the federal tort claims act, or if there is medicare/medicaid fraud.

For the fraud issues, its usually financial, rather than patient care. For the FTCA issues, I agree there is a problem.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. I think the problem

Was gross negligence and elder abuse on the part of the nursing home. Here are some relevant links:

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/access_beverly.html

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=va&vol=0802022&invol=1

http://www.rissman.com/Body/medmalPublication.asp