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KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM |
“A non-profit organization dedicated to the welfare of the “Forgotten Kentuckians” |
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THE NEWSLETTER October 9, 2007
MAKE YOUR PLANS NOW TO ATTEND
Sunday Oct. 28 -- Lexington
This is one in a continuing series of educational seminars in Lexington and Louisville sponsored by Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform with the help of generous grants from the Kentucky Justice Association, Peoples Bank and Trust of Madison County, the Kentucky Family Safety Foundation and Sal’s Chophouse.
The event is free and open to the public.
Also, there are two other important meetings of interest
to advocates for nursing home reform – another educational seminar in Louisville on Nov. 11 and a conference on “Healthcare Transparency
& Patient Advocacy,” sponsored by Health Watch USA and Kentucky Watch.
Click
http://www.kynursinghomereform
NEW YORK TIMES LETS ‘EM HAVE IT A brilliant investigative piece in The New York Times last month blew the top off the sanctimonious, big-bucks guy in the nursing home industry with its article, “More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes.” NYT writer Charles Duhigg obviously did a considerable amount of research for the article that showed what happens when the big money investment firms on Wall Street buy nursing home corporations. In short, Mr. Duhigg showed that these investor firms typically lay off workers and increase occupancy. Furthermore, the nursing homes themselves are hidden in a maze of corporate bureaucracy so that they are difficult to find, much less be held legally responsible by the people they have hurt. It’s something that has been going on for a long time. Reports Mr. Duhigg: “The first thing owners do is lay off nurses and other staff that are essential to keeping patients safe,” said Charlene Harrington, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco who studies nursing homes. In her opinion, she added, “chains have made a lot of money by cutting nurses, but it’s at the cost of human lives.” Mr. Duhigg also reports that “groups lobbying to increase transparency at nursing homes say complicated corporate structures should be outlawed.” Two prominent U.S. Senators, Hilary Clinton (D-NY) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) are asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate the situation. And the nation’s largest healthcare workers union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) called for Congressional hearings. The nursing home industry immediately went on the defensive, as you can imagine, but there surely will be more to come from this NYT expose.
INDEPENDENCE DAY More than 200 workers and advocates in the healthcare field met in Louisville last week for what was billed as a “summit” meeting on issues facing long-term care in Kentucky. Here are some highlights from that conference, also attended by the two candidates for governor: * The state has a $49.8 million grant to help move Medicaid residents out of nursing homes and into their communities. But in five years, the state estimates it will move only 431 of the 23,000 people in nursing homes. “A lot of services being wasted,” suggested one of the conference speakers. Another speaker said his research showed that 3,360 people in Kentucky nursing homes “want to go home. * The state announced another grant of $333,000 from the feds, which when combined with $136,891 from Kentucky, will amount to $470,376 for pilot programs in the Big Sandy and Kentucky River areas to divert people who do not qualify for Medicaid from having to go into a nursing home and allowing them instead to hire – with state help -- their own caregivers to enable them to stay at home. * Won’t all this helping people get out of nursing homes hurt the nursing home industry? “There will always be a need for nursing homes,” said Ruby Jo Lubarsky, head of the industry’s big Kentucky lobbying organization, who was attending the conference. One of the conference speakers, however, said that “the vacancy rate is increasing in nursing homes across the country.” He said nursing homes are starting to go into other things, like rehab services where they make more money, or even into the home health care business. * Maybe moving lots of people out of nursing homes will help on the quality of care for the people who have to stay, suggested conference attendee Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown in an interview. His logic seemed to be that if the nursing homes start hurting for customers, maybe they will provide better quality care to keep the ones they get. * A group called Advocates for Reforming Medicaid Services (called ARMS) released a “state of long-term care” paper at the conference which in part said that Kentucky “must re-think its policies about how it supports its frail and vulnerable citizens, and recommended in part that the state take the leadership to assure that quality, person-centered care is provided to those who choose nursing home care….” ARMS is pretty much controlled by AARP of Kentucky. * And the candidates for governor? They both agreed with the theme of the conference, to let people live at home or in the community if they want to. But Democratic candidate Steve Beshear did remind the conference attendees that “nursing home care is always going to be there.”
THEY’RE RICH, BUT STILL COMPLAIN The big, bad nursing home industry is notorious for always giving excuses why suggestions to improve the quality of their care are not valid. Favorite excuse is that “we don’t have enough money.” Even lawmakers often fall for their cries for more money. Truth is that the nursing home industry is big and rich. Here are some examples: Ø In the state 2007 fiscal year, nursing homes in Kentucky were reimbursed to the tune of more than $745 million to take care of Medicaid patients. That coming on top of more that $724 million in SFY 2006. About 70 percent of those reimbursements came from the federal government. Ø Nursing home operators must be doing pretty well too. They gladly pay $795 each for registration and meals at the annual convention of their big lobbying group, a pretty hefty amount as conventions go. However, with all that money coming from the state and federal government, who cares?
SHORT STUFF…. § A federal appeals court has ruled that paid feeding assistants are legal in nursing homes. Kentucky officials say that as best they can find out, there are only 11 of them certified in the state at the present time. § Two state officials – Deborah Anderson, commissioner for the Department of Aging and Independent Living, and Jacqueline Strader, the state long-term care ombudsman, will speak at the annual meeting in November of the big industry lobbying group, the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities. Ironically, Ms. Strader was formerly an official of Kindred Healthcare, the big nursing home corporation in Louisville. § The Henry County extension council is helping residents of Homestead Nursing Center in New Castle. They call their program Second Wind Dreams and what they do is collect wishes from the residents and then go about making them happen. § A national study by the Government Accountability Office says that some nursing homes are getting off Scot free even though they have repeatedly been found harming residents. Nor do they usually pay the full amount of fines levied. They typically are given a grace period to improve which allows them to cycle in and out of compliance with federal standards for years. § Makes one wonder: There are 35 organizations that are members of Advocates for Reforming Medicaid Services, but not Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform. We’ve never been invited…. And the advisory committee for the Kentucky Health Care Excel organization, which does quality control work in nursing homes, has more than 20 persons on its advisory committee but no one concerned with nursing home reform. § That regulation on Assisted Living we have been trying to change for the better had another hearing before the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee. An advocate for reform was given only three minutes to testify – this after the committee had spent nearly an hour on a regulation for fishing licenses. (Shows where the priorities are sometimes.) The co-chairman of the subcommittee, Sen. Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, said that the suggestions would have to be handled by legislation, not by administrative regulations. He cut off any further discussion. That was it (well almost it) and the regulation passed in its original form. The other co-chairman of the committee is Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville. He was present but did not say anything about this issue. § CORRECTION: In our last issue of The Newsletter, we made a mistake when we said that Richmond Place of Lexington has assisted living facilities. A sharp reader said, “The two units that Richmond Place operated on their main campus are licensed as Personal Care facilities, actual nursing homes, and are surveyed as such by the state…. Richmond Place does not have … assisted living.” We are happy to set the record straight.
CLARIFICATION: Also, we have mentioned the Wilkes & McHugh law firm several times in this newsletter and associated it with the big, $22 million verdict over a Frankfort nursing home. This is true, but we left out another attorney and his firm who were involved in the case: Stephen M. O’Brien III of Garmer & O’Brien law firm in Lexington. We are happy to clarify that oversight.
MEMORIALIZE YOUR LOVED ONES KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM is now officially a non-profit organization. That means that any donations to the organization are tax deductible by the donor. With that in mind, we offer for your consideration the thought that memorials at the time of death of a loved one or friend could be in the form of donations to KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM, 1530 Nicholasville Road, Lexington, KY 40503.
NEWS NOTES…. We get tons of information in here about nursing home reform. We want to share this information with those of you who are interested, but rather than putting it all in our newsletter we will post it regularly on our web site: http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org Go there now and see what we mean.
THAT’S IT FOR THIS TIME, BUT DON’T FORGET….
THAT’S
IT FOR THIS TIME, BUT DON’T FORGET...
P.S. When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."-- Henny Youngman
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming 1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it, 2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
-- Thanks to Joe Isaac for sharing….. and “just kidding,” Barbara
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