New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog

Elder abuse and elder fraud by family caregivers or acquaintances are unfortunately getting more and more common and not enough is being done to stop this epidemic.

Family members are often the first appointed guardians and serve as representative payees when a person is declared incapacitated. In the US 85% of the 5.9 million Social Security payees are family members. Unfortunately payees are not being thoroughly checked and abuse is on the rise.

In a recent article BARBARA LAKER and WENDY RUDERMAN from the Philadelphia Daily News describe recent cases of elderly or disabled people who have been abused and neglected by family members or acquaintances who stole their money.

To prevent nursing home neglect or abuse, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the States send teams of inspectors to survey nursing homes on a regular basis to assure that facilities meet the quality of care standard required by Medicare and Medicaid.

These teams look for deficiencies in the quality of care provided to their elderly patients and for deficiencies in the safety requirements such as protection from fire hazards. Most nursing homes have some deficiencies. The national average of deficiency per inspection is 6 to 7 per nursing home. However a minority of nursing homes have more than twice the average number of deficiencies and have more serious problem than others, including reports of harm and injury to patients.

Nursing homes that have a pattern of serious problems for more than 3 years are enlisted in the Special Focus Facility Initiative and can be barred from Medicare and Medicaid participation if they don’t address their problems within a reasonable period of time.