Aggressive tactics by nursing homes make family members responsible for unpaid debt
Do you know the old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished”? Well, this one takes the cake.
Imagine this scenario: You are helping a loved one or a dear friend move into a nursing home, perhaps after a fall or surgery for rehab, or maybe even a longer-term stay. Likely they are frail, perhaps not well enough to fill out all the required paperwork.
Often, an admissions person might suggest that you fill out these documents, especially if you are a family member. You are handed a tablet where documents may be difficult to read. Perhaps someone is assisting you to scroll down to the signature page and skip over all the boring parts.
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Don't be so quick to sign without looking over the details. The nursing home industry has “quietly developed what consumer attorneys and patient advocates say is a pernicious strategy of pursuing family and friends of patients” as they attempt to collect unpaid debt, according to a Kaiser Health News and National Public Radio investigation.
How is this possible? The legal strategy is based on the admissions agreement. Often lengthy, agreements use terms like “responsible party” and, as the signee, the nursing home claims this obligates the family.
Some agreements include a statement that the family is “voluntarily” assuming responsibility. However, federal law does not allow a nursing home to require a family member to be responsible. Most people have no idea that by signing a basic admissions agreement, they have unwittingly made themselves open to possible litigation concerning unpaid debts.
This has resulted in nursing homes going after adult children, even grandchildren, and neighbors and friends. Keep in mind that most often those being sued do not have power of attorney for the resident and have no legal control over the resident’s assets.
“Consumer attorneys in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio said they regularly see lawsuits against family and friends," according to the Kaiser Health News and NPR investigation. Some states have successfully sued nursing homes and forced nursing homes to stop “deceptive billing practices.”
To be fair, the health care industry claims they are simply going after unpaid bills from people who have the assets to pay them, rather than writing the debt off. But this has included accusing families of stealing assets instead of paying the debt.
While it is a known fact that senior financial fraud is carried out by a high percentage of family members, court records show judges regularly dismissing nursing home cases like this for lack of evidence. Going after sons and daughters and garnishing their wages seems extreme.
Many of those being sued are lower-income families, or seniors themselves on fixed incomes. Some of these families have been threatened with not just lawsuits, but arrests as well, amounting to what some advocates say is pure intimidation.
Suits can range from under $10,000 to more than $100,000 and can result in tremendous stress for those being sued. Often, families can’t afford an attorney and if they fail to respond to the suit, it makes matters worse.
In nearly a third of the cases investigated by Kaiser Health News and NPR, the nursing homes won default judgements because the defendants never responded. Lawsuits sometimes added an 18% interest rate on top of the debt, The American Health Care Association, the largest national nursing home industry group in the U.S., says lawsuits are not common, but as more bills go unpaid, I suspect that this practice is not going away.
Remember, federal regulations prohibit nursing homes from requiring a resident’s relatives or friends to financially guarantee the residents bills. Facilities are not even allowed to request such a guarantee! I have not heard of this happening in Florida, and I hope it doesn’t, but we can all be aware of the possibility and read any admission contract carefully.
Always ask to see a printed version of the agreement. Request a verification in writing that you are not personally obligated for any debt for a family member you are assisting into a nursing home or rehabilitation center.
If a nursing home refuses admission or threatens discharge of your loved one, seek help from your local ombudsmen’s office (ombudsman.elderaffairs.org), your local free legal services such as Three Rivers Legal Services in Gainesville (www.trls.org), or contact an elder law attorney.
You can refuse to sign any agreement and a facility cannot deny admission. Please educate yourself and your loved ones, and don’t sign anything without reading it in full!
Star Bradbury (www.starbradbury.com) is the owner of Senior Living Strategies in Gainesville.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Star Bradbury: Nursing home tactics make family responsible for debt
