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SAVING GRACE |
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AGING WITH HUMOR |
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GOALS FOR SAVING GRACE |
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GRAY RIBBON CAMPAIGN |
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ASSISTED LIVING |
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THE CRIMINALS ARE ADMITTING THEY STOLE
TAX PAYERS MEDICARE FUNDS BUT OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM
IS NOT CRIMINALLY PROSECUTING THEM
OR COLLECTING ALL THE MONEY THEY STOLE
 IF THE FACT
that nursing homes are
killing and seriously injuring 30% of their patients
and only 3% of nursing facilities are giving a standard of care
that meets the State and Federal Standards of the law,
if this doesn't upset the public enough for them to
demand something be done:
(See GAO Report HEHS-98-202)
AND
IF THE FACT
that major nursing home chains are filing bankruptcy
but still pay their CEO's 6 & 7 figures in salaries and bonuses
and still contribute millions of dollars to the politicians,
if this doesn't make the public demand seizure
of all assets from these nursing home chains:
and
IF THE FACT
that many of these nursing home chains have admitted
to defrauding our Medicare System but they are still collecting huge amounts
of monies from Medicare Funds to provide a humane level of care
that meets both state and federal standards of the law but daily
they fail to fulfill these requirements. If this doesn't make the public angry
enough to demand a full accountability from our politicians who are receiving
the millions in contributions from these nursing home chains
:
Does the FACT this nursing home industry is not being forced by
our Justice System to pay back all of the millions of dollars
in Medicare funds they admitted they
"SCHEMED TO DEFRAUD" and STEAL FROM US TAX PAYERS.
Does this make the public want to
demand a full investigation
of this system that is failing to do their jobs ?.
Does the FACT this for profit industry has now sucked so much money
from our Medicare system for their FOR PROFIT BUSINESS,
that Medicare
may not be around when you and I need it.
Is this enough to move the public to write letters to the President,
demanding that
HOW MUCH MORE WILL IT TAKE UNTIL
our Justice System put these criminals behind bars,
force them to pay back the money they have stolen from our public funds
and place these nursing homes in the hands of our cities and counties
to be run as a non- profit community service.
HOW MUCH MORE WILL IT TAKE
to get the public to rise up
and demand accountability from our politicians, our Justice System,
our Department of Health and our President ?
This is NOT another nursing home horror story,
it is about fraud. One of the biggest rip-off's of taxpayers funds in U.S. history.
Fraud that has had a serious detrimental effect on the
care of our elderly in our nations nursing homes.
It's about the failure of our government
to recover the million of our stolen tax dollars.
It's about the failure of our Justice System to criminally prosecute,
when the laws of our land have clearly been broken, over and over again.
We want some straight answers!
WHY?
I am cutting and pasting in a few lines from recent stories
, about all this fraud.
When the total amount of the fraud is added together,
it's one of the largest rip off's
of public funds in our history.
These few nursing home owners provide
about 20% of the nursing home beds
in the U.S.
Many admit they "schemed to defraud Medicare."
Yet they are not being held criminally accountable
for their intentional acts.
Fraudulent charting showing nursing staff
on duty when they were not.
The shortage of staff leads to neglect, elder abuse
and death of our nursing home patients.
I have the death certificates of over
24,000 deaths in California nursing homes
, showing 10,000 deaths from Urinary Tract Infections,
7,000 deaths from starvation,
2,500 deaths from bedsores,
4,500 deaths from dehydration,
1,000 deaths from fecal/bowel obstructions.
There are thousands of deaths
where you see 'fractured hip in nursing home'
then 30 days later the patient dies from pneumonia,
because they are left lying in their bed, unattended,
no breathing therapy and very little care,
due to shortage of staff.
The patients lungs fill with fluid and they die.
How many of these falls could have been prevented,
if there was sufficient staffing?
Many of the charts show the patients were found on the floor,
no one saw what happened
. Where was the staff?
Is the missing staff, part of the phony nurses on the sign-in sheets?
Where is the government, and why are they not taking actions
against these nursing homes for these preventable deaths?
$13.5 Billion in Medicare Losses Reported
Inspector General Offers Offenders Leniency
March 10, 2000 WASHINGTON (AP) --
Medicare program losses -- money wasted
through fraud, mistakes and other problems --
inched up to $13.5 billion in 1999 after falling
for three consecutive years, government auditors reported.
The figure means that nearly
8 cents out of every dollar paid by Medicare last year was wasted.
The program paid out $169.5 billion last year.
Inspector General June Gibbs Brown renewed an offer
on Thursday to go easy on health-care provider
s who voluntarily confess to fraud or billing mistakes,
pledging not to kick them out of Medicare if they
can show they have fixed the problems.
"We want to encourage providers to come forward
and disclose conduct that threatens federal health-care programs,"
Brown said in a letter to providers.
A leniency program for those who turn themselves in began in 1998.
(These crooks by their actions have proven they are dishonest
and we are suppose to trust they will be honest and voluntarily
admit they ripped us off ?
Skunks dont change their smell.)
Beverly Pays $175 Mln for Medicare Fraud (Beverly Enterprise)
By Andrew Quinn Thursday, February 3, 2000
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Beverly Enterprises Inc.(NYSE:BEV - news),
the nation's largest chain of nursing homes,
finalized a deal on Thursday to pay $175 million
to resolve charges it defrauded the Medicare system by improperly
charging the government for millions of dollars in patient care costs.
B.E. must divest itself of 10 nursing homes as part of the deal // Beverly-California
``fabricated nursing cost figures based on set formulas designed to maximize profits."
The company filed cost reports that "falsely inflated the number
of hours attributable to Medicare patients," the government said.
The fake cost figures were backed by false documents such as
"phony nurse sign-in sheets," according to the government.
Twenty-five million will be paid by Beverly within 30 days.
Beverly will pay the balance over an eight-year period, interest-free.
The $175 million total // is far less than the $460 million the government
claims Beverly defrauded Medicare through phony cost reports
"The reason why the government agreed to the lesser
amount was essentially Beverly's ability to pay,"
Alwyn Cassil (Spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services
Office of Inspector General) said.
"Imposing a higher settlement amount would
hreaten their ability to operate." Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Caldwell
, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment on why no charges
were filed against top officials at the company.
(What about patient care and wrongful deaths? )
Miami Hearld
March 14, 200
0
Beverly Enterprises pleads guilty to criminal charges of inflating the number of hours nurses spent caring for Medicare patients.
Washington Post Staff Writer (Vencor)
By David S. Hilzenrat Tuesday March 14, 2000 Page E01
The Justice Department said yesterday that it is entitled to recoup
$1 billion from Vencor Inc., accusing one of the nation's largest
nursing home companies of knowingly defrauding the government since 1992.
"the knowing submission of false claims to the government
and the fraudulent schemes by Vencor between 1992 and the present."
In October, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that Venco
r and the Justice Department were negotiating a
settlement that called for $130 million of repayments
to the government over five years.
"It's troubling because the amount that we believe
was falsely claimed and paid to Vencor (by the government)
far exceeds what the government will be paid back," said Kenneth Nolan
, an attorney in a whistle-blower suit against the company.
Government officials say they try not to press a company
so hard that the patients who depend on a company for care would suffer.
THE JUSTICE Department has always indicated that it will
take into account Vencor's ability to pay in any settlement.
(The patients are already suffering and dying due to the neglect,
so are these Government Officials protecting the patients or the company?
The Courier Journal
Louisville Ky. March 15, 2000 (Vencor)
U.S. says Vencor owes it $ 1.3 billion.
Claim based largely on fraud committed over most of the past decade
by the Louisville-based nursing home and hospital company
losses suffered by the U.S. in connection with the knowing
submission of false claims'' by Vencor, Miller said.
THE JUSTICE Department has always indicated that it will take into account Vencor's
ability to pay in any settlement. (Is Justice working for the public or for Vencor?)
Washington Post Staff Writer (Sun)
David S. Hilzenrat
Sun Healthcare Group Inc., a big nursing-home chain now
in bankruptcy reorganization, has reported that it is a
defendant in whistle-blower suits accusing it of false claims.
Sun reported that the Justice Department has joined one of the suits
and has informed Sun of "a number of outstanding inquiries."
the nursing-home giant could be forced to repay tens of millions of dollars.
the government already has identified overpayments to Sun
that could total between $40 million and $55 million.
Lesperance said, the government expects to identify additional
over payments as a result of a re-audit of operating costs that Sun
reported to Medicare.
An earlier investigation by the state of Connecticut found
that Sun had improperly billed for expenses such as luxury condominiums,
a corporate jet and a trip to Italy by some employees.
Sun's settlement of that investigation this
year cost the company about $8 million.
The company said some of the (more recent) inquiries were
prompted by the filing of whistle-blower, or "qui tam," lawsuits
that remain under seal in federal court.
Sacramento Bee, California (Horizon West)
By Denny Walch Bee Staff Writer
(Published Feb 26, 1999)
A Rocklin-based nursing home company agreed Thursday to pay $4 million
to settle claims that it bilked Medicare by fraudulently billing for items
ranging from Lotto tickets to Christmas liquor and by exaggerating
its patient-care expenses.// Horizon West, along with numerous partnerships
and subsidiaries, operates more than 30 nursing homes in California and Utah
Most of the fraud involved inflated patient care costs,
Since 1991, Horizon West has derived more than 75 percent
of its income from federal insurance programs, such as Medicare,
which helps pay for care received by people 65
and over in skilled nursing facilities.
These are just a few of those chains charged with FRAUD.
Others are working their way into and through the courts.
These chains fraudulently billed for staffing that was not there,
exaggerating patient care expense.
These chains have a history of shorting
the staff to increase their profits.
When there is not enough staff to feed, furnish water, turn the patients,
keep accurate records of intake and out put, check the patients
vital signs including their temperatures,
which would reveal infections,
when this care is not given due to a staffing shortage,
the above causes of death are the results.
Patients are dying from lack of care.
Where is the government charges against these
nursing home chains for breaking these laws for this lack of care?
Charges for patient neglect, patient abuse and their Wrongful deaths
are painfully missing from their litigation.
Many of us who have dealt with THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
feel sure these lawsuits would never have taken place
but for the whistle blowers attorneys who made it impossible
for THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT to walk away without bringing some kind
of actions against these nursing homes,
WHY?
These same nursing homes have a history of not giving proper care,
proven a thousands times by a thousand stories of wrongful deaths,
abuse and neglect. By thousands of successful lawsuits
filed against them in civil courts across the nation.
Why isn't poor care and wrongful death part of the charges
against these nursing home chains.
Why is our government giving these owners a
gift of millions of our stolen tax dollars, not collecting
the full amount they stole from us?
Why isn't applicable interest and penalties of treble damages
for these owners fraudulent acts being levied and collected ?
It is crystal clear the current system isn't working and
needs to be replaced
. For 8 to 10 years that we know about, these crook have been stealing
us taxpayers blind and jeopardizing our Medicare and Medicaid system
to the point it may not be around for the rest of us when we need it.
An in-depth nine month GAO study of California nursing homes
, lead to Congressional Hearings in March 98
. The GAO Reported it found 30% of all California nursing homes
were causing serious injury or death to the patients and
ONLY 3% of the nursing homes were giving care that met both State & Federal Standards of the law.
The report stated that 67% of the nursing homes,
had serious care violations, the laws were being broken
and an acceptable standard of care was not being given.
The main cause of all this suffering,
was severe under staffing by this nursing home industry.
Our government did not criminally prosecute these nursing homes
identified in this study for wrongful deaths, instead they turned a blind eye
and a deaf ear to the cries of pain from neglect,
abuse and wrongful deaths of our elderly.
WHY?
*Using the Government Accounting Office Study of California
nursing homes as a yard stick for the other states.
Thank you,
Ila Swan
552 Redwood Drive
Vacaville, Ca. 95687
(707) 451-8330
SEE ARTICLE
 HEALTHCARE INTELLIGENCE NETWORK
Please See the article
Healthcare Industry/Managed Care:
Justice’s Big-Dollar Claim Against Vencor
is Bad News for Other Creditors
May 11, 2000
This article states:
"Among the specific alleged misdeeds are that Vencor"
 billed Medicare individually for services provided in bunches.
For example, if Vencor or a subsidiary provided
portable X-ray services to five patients at a single
location at one time, the company would
charge five separate portage fees.
In some cases, two portage fees would be
charged for two X-rays of the same patient.
overbilled for dialysis services by
routinely drawing blood twice for a battery
of tests that only required a single draw.
folded costs incurred by its contract services
business into its long-term care hospitals,
increasing the cost-to-charge ratios
that determine Medicare disbursements.
"harvested" for resale drugs not used away
from the facility by long-term Medicare
patients for a day or more,
while still billing the patients.
kept patients in more-expensive hospitals
longer than necessary, for example by forbidding
discharges on Fridays to keep them over the weekend.
billed for a high level of care when
that care was not provided,
including charges for cardiac monitors without paper.
gave sales staff titles such as "case managers"
in order to bill Medicare for
sales calls to prospective patients.
required facility administrators to make
“increased Medicare utilization” a “tactical objective,”
through means such as offering paid holidays
and bonuses to medical workers.
The staff allegedly was trained to write medical orders
to show necessity for maximizing services.
Respiratory therapists were told to “comb the patient chart”
to find a reason to provide therapy;
if they couldn’t, the charts were changed.
falsified collection letters in order to
bill Medicare for bad debts.
held psychiatric patients unnecessarily
for the lifetime 180-day maximum,
guaranteeing the highest disbursement
but essentially preventing the person from
ever receiving inpatient treatment again.
 ADDITIONAL ARTICLES OF INTEREST
 Medicare Monitor: How a whistle-blower
spurred pricing |
Medicare Monitor: How a whistle-blower
spurred pricing case involving drug makers
Saturday, May 13, 2000
By DAVID S. CLOUD and LAURIE MCGINLEY
The Wall Street Journal (Via AP)
OR SEE ARCHIVES
"Ven-A-Care Inc., the little Key West company where
Mr. Bentley worked, bought the anti-cancer drug
to administer to patients in their homes.
He noticed that Ven-A-Care paid wholesalers
about $10 for a 50-milligram dose,
but Medicare reimbursed the company
$56 — for a hefty $46 profit.
Incredulous, he started looking into why."
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