Try: Patient-centered care nursing home residents and family members have more power than they may realize to determine the kind of care they receive federal law allows patients and families to play a role in developing a care plan and nursing home staff to make reasonable adjustments to honor patients’ preferences for example restraints and feeding tubes can only be used as last resorts mood drugs must be prescribed for treatment of specific conditions, not to make treatment more convenient for nursing home staff residents and caregivers should also be aware that nursing home staff may try to limit the amount of care they provide or use methods to make the staff’s lives easier admission some nursing homes may try to lure family members into taking financial responsibility for the resident’s care as a condition of admission during the admission process a nursing home may ask a family member to sign as a "responsible party" without explaining the term the family member may think he is serving as an emergency contact but the contract’s small print reveals the responsible party is liable for expenses it is important for family members to know that federal law makes it illegal for a nursing home ftorequire a family member to take the financial burden of care family members should not hesitate to refuse to sign such a provision especially if the resident is already occupying a room medicare medicare is not a comprehensive health insurance program it only allows for limited reimbursement for nursing home care often payment depends on a link to hospital care and is limited to situations where residents enter the nursing home within 30 days after a hospital stay of at least three nights medicare will not pay for custodial care such as medication administration medicare kicks in only if the resident needs skilled nursing or rehabilitation services if the nursing home decides it will not bill medicare for the resident’s care it must give the resident written notice however residents are not bound by these decisions and can insist the facility submit a bill to medicare medicaid nursing homes rely on medicaid reimbursement for half of their revenues but medicaid tends to pay lower rates than do private payers or medicare because of this nursing homes may try to provide second-class treatment to medicaid recipients but federal law makes it illegal to discriminate against someone based on his medicaid status under the nursing home reform law nursing homes "must establish and maintain identical policies and practices regarding transfer discharge and the provision of services under the state medicaid plan for all individuals regardless of source of payment " eviction the demand for nursing home beds can be high so some nursing home facilities may try to evict residents they view as difficult eviction is only allowed for six reasons failure to pay a resident no longer needs nursing home care a resident’s needs cannot be met in a nursing home a resident is endangering others’ safety a resident is endangering others’ health the facility is going out of business the facility must give written notice of the eviction to the resident usually within 30 days of the discharge the nursing home must also provide facts supporting its decision to evict someone the notice must include telephone numbers of the nursing home inspection and licensing authorities and instructions about how to appeal an eviction decision information references "twenty common nursing home problems and the laws to resolve them by e carlson 2006 clearinghouse review journal of poverty law and policy jan feb 39 9-10 pages519-33
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Categories: Sage, Topic, Financial, Legal, Medical Physical
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Keywords: Nursing home legal medicare medicaid health care housing patients’ rights
*This information is listed as a Fact Sheet and is not explicitly medically licensed