A veterans nursing home facility has recently been fined over $11,000 for covering up a patient incident. The nursing home received a citation regarding the incident among other citations for incidents including theft of residents and a patient with bed sores. The facility was already operating under a provisional license due to earlier citations.  Two nursing home employees were involved in the cover up.

A cite survey resulting in the loss of Medicare and Medicaid funding will leave patients packing for the holidays. Deficiencies related to patient care caused the nursing home facility to lose its aid that offsets the cost for patients. They will now have to move to new nursing homes where Medicare and Medicaid funding can be received.  The board of directors has been trying to turn over management to local control, but this will not help the patients affected by the loss of funding.

Two nursing home facilities have been cited for incidents among which involved putting patients in “immediate jeopardy”. Other incidents noted include “accident hazards”, failure to provide a background check, and record keeping issues. Violations of care by the nursing home facilities were considered serious according to the department of health state rating system.  The two facilities have been purchased by new ownership recently bringing focus to the nursing homes.

A registry mandated in one state by a senate bill now holds list of individual’s names that have had substantiated claims against them for abuse and neglect. Although the registry is not open to all public, the list is available to nursing home administration for hiring purposes. Potential employees can be validated against the registry.  The list includes employees and volunteers of nursing homes.

A medical transport team provided a transportation for patients to be home for the holidays. It was a special campaign effort and patients were certainly appreciative. “I’m glad to be going home and I love my family and everybody here was so excited for me,” said one patient.  Eight patients from several nursing homes were able to receive rides to their families.

Four facilities were fined for nursing home neglect based on incidents cited by state health departments. The incidents involved patients that were cut, assaulted by other residents, and untreated after being hurt. Another patient was turned roughly, by a nursing aid allowing his arm to hit a chair.