New Developments
- CANHR releases a new report on the sad state of nursing home drugging in California. Today, CANHR is releasing "In a Stupor: What California’s Antipsychotic Drug Collaborative Reveals About Illegal Nursing Home Drugging." The report analyzes the findings of the Department of Public Health's Antipsychotic Drug Collaborative with which the Department has investigated 24 nursing homes and found 147 violations of state rules regarding the use of antipsychotics on residents. The Department's investigations confirm that misuse of antipsychotics is rampant in California nursing homes and deserves immediate remedial action. Read more...
(posted Jan. 27, 2012)
- Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction, Stops IHSS 20% across the board cuts from going forward. On January 19, 2012, a Federal Judge in Oakland continued to block the state from reducing in-home care to thousands of low-income disabled and elderly residents. Read more...
(posted Jan. 20, 2012)
- CORRECTION: In the most recent edition of The Advocate a Citation issued by the State of California Dept. of Public Health was incorrectly attributed to Dreier's Nursing Care Center in Glendale when the Citation was actually issued to another facility. Dreiers Nursing Care Center has not received any Citations in 2011. We apologize for this error.
(posted Jan. 3, 2012)
- U.S. Senate Holds Hearing About Antipsychotic Misuse in Nursing Homes. On November 30, 2011, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held a special hearing titled "Overprescribed: The Human and Taxpayers' Costs of Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes." The hearing follows a May 2011 Inspector General Report finding massive misuse of antipsychotic drugs... Read more...
(posted Dec. 7, 2011)
- Lawsuit filed to End Practice of Hospital "Observation Status". On November 3, 2011, the Center for Medicare Advocacy and the National Senior Citizens Law Center filed a class action lawsuit against Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, on behalf of seven individual plaintiffs - all Medicare beneficiaries who received hospital inpatient services - harmed by the increasingly common practice of classifying these patients as on "observation status," rather than inpatients. This practice deprives Medicare beneficiaries of Part A coverage for their hospital stay, and because of the 3-day prior hospitalization stay requirement - deprives them of Part A coverage for post-hospitallization skilled nursing care. Read more...
(posted Nov. 18, 2011)
- The Secretary of State is asked to release funds to 514 victims of elder financial abuse. The California Victims of Corporate Fraud Compensation Fund, since its inception in 2002 has collected almost $15 Million and only paid out $92,000 to seven people. Read more...
(posted October 14, 2011)
- New Law Extends Financial Protections for Medi-Cal's Long Term Care Benefit to Same Sex Spouses and Registered Domestic Partners: On October 11, 2011, The Governor signed AB 641, a major step forward in ensuring that same sex partners receive equal treatment under the law during one of the most difficult periods of life - i.e., when one spouse must enter a nursing home. Read more...
(posted October 14, 2011)
- Falsified Patient Records are Untold Story of California Nursing Home Care. On September 18th and 19th, the Sacramento Bee published an alarming series on the common complaint that nursing home records often have little to do with reality. Read more...
(posted Sept. 23, 2011)
- CCL Issues New Policies. CANHR is very pleased to report that Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing (CCL), has issued new policies aimed at protecting residents of Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFE) from unlawful evictions. Read more...
(posted Sept. 16, 2011)
- Treatment of Lavender v. Skilled Healthcare Settlement Funds. CANHR has received numerous calls from recipients of settlement funds resulting from the Lavendar v. Skilled Healthcare Group, Inc. lawsuit. Since a number of recipients are currently Medi-Cal or SSI recipients, these funds could affect their continuing eligibility. Please refer to the linked fact sheet for information and call the CANHR office (800) 474-1116 if you have questions. Fact Sheet...
(posted Sept. 1, 2011)
- Governor Axes Adult Day Health Care Services. With the stroke of his veto pen, Governor Brown struck down a replacement program for Adult Day Health Care Services (ADHC) and upended the lives of about 35,000 Californians who depend on the services to meet their needs and stay out of nursing homes. Read more...
(posted August 30, 2011)
- Long-Term Care Insurance on the Radio. CANHR Staff Attorney Prescott Cole and financial advisor Timothy Millar joined KALW Radio Host Chuck Finney on "Your Legal Rights" for an hour-long discussion on the pros and cons of Long-Term Care Insurance. Listen here...
(posted August 19, 2011)
- Illegal Nursing Home Evictions on the Rise as State Shirks Enforcement. Channel 5 News in San Francisco has posted a story featuring two Bay Area illegal nursing home eviction cases. Nursing homes have become more brazen in refusing to readmit residents who have been temporarily hospitalized, largely due to the lack of state enforcement of resident eviction protections. Watch the Channel 5 story...
(posted August 2, 2011)
- Your Right to Visit - CANHR Publishes Free Guide for Visitors to Long-term Care Residents and Hospital Patients. The right to meet with visitors of a person's choosing is among the most intimate rights we have. Despite federal and state laws that protect the right to visitation for people who enter a long-term care facility or hospital, health care providers often prohibit visitors who are considered problematic. These providers illegally assume the role of sentinel - deciding who may or may not see a resident. This Guide reviews the laws protecting a resident's right to visitation and common visitation issues and offers ideas for remedying visitation problems through the use of sample cases. Read the report...
(posted June 21, 2011)
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