WASHINGTON 鈥斅燤aryland鈥檚 attorney general is accusing a local nursing home chain of evicting hundreds of vulnerable residents, in some cases dumping them in homeless shelters or unlicensed facilities as soon as the patient鈥檚 Medicare benefits ran out.
Brian Frosh, the state鈥檚 attorney general, announced that .
Frosh said a look at NMS鈥檚 operations over a 17-month period showed a clear pattern of behavior. He said聽NMS represents 2 percent of all the nursing home beds in the state, yet 鈥渢hey represent聽66 to 70 percent of the evictions.鈥� In some cases, Frosh said, patients were 鈥淛ust tossed out 鈥斅爐hey put their (the patients’) stuff out in front of the facility and closed the door.鈥�
The suit alleges that NMS would evict patients in order to maximize reimbursement from the federal program. Medicare reimburses facilities at a higher rate than Medicaid.
Under Maryland law, nursing facilities are required to provide discharge plans to patients once Medicare benefits are depleted so that a patient鈥檚 medical care would not be interrupted.
Thirty-year-old Andrew Edwards, who has kidney disease, said he is one of those patients who was evicted from a NMS facility in Hagerstown.
Edwards is clear on one thing; The care he got while at the Hagerstown facility was very good.
鈥淚 liked everybody there, 鈥� he said, singling out the physical and occupational therapy staffers for their performance. 鈥淎nd all the nurses and techs were really great, too.鈥� But when his insurance ran out, things changed.
Edwards was taken to a home in Catonsville. He said he was told the woman who operated the home was very caring and that he would get continued medical services. He said he noted right away that the Catonsville home was not handicap-accessible and just as importantly, his appointments for dialysis had not been arranged. 鈥淭hey never set up my dialysis, so I ended up in the emergency room,鈥� he said, which led to a two-week hospital stay.
海角精品黑料 contacted NMS but did not hear back. The Washington Post quoted NMS CEO Mark Yost as saying he 鈥渟trongly denies any wrongdoing.鈥�
