Nursing Home Fraud Contributes to Abuse and Neglect
I wrote earlier today about nursing home abuse as a corporate crime motivated by greed. A clear-cut example of the kind of greed that motivates many nursing home owners is given by the three Texas men who have received prison sentences ranging from four to ten years in prison for a nursing home scam to cheat the government of $34 million in taxes.
The three men controlled about 40 nursing homes in Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Virginia, and Oklahoma, licensed for about 6000 residents and appearing to employ 4500 employees, although the actual number of residents and employees is not available. The men took the employees withholding taxes and placed them into 150 sham staffing and payroll "entities" designed to launder the money.
Stephen Michael Ewing, represented as the ringleader of the case, was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay $11.6 million in restitution that will go into the Medicaid and Medicare fund. Gary R. Trebert was given a reduced sentence of six years for turning states' evidence against Ewing, and ordered to pay $ 11.6 million in restitution. Larry Gordon May was also given a reduced sentence of four years, but was apparently not required to pay restitution.
But is this merely a monetary crime? No, because while the conspirators were absorbed in laundering their money, they were not monitoring care at their facilities. At least one resident died in the "care" of one of the nursing homes run by the conspirators. The wrongful death lawsuit against the company concluded last week, with a verdict for $2.1 million in favor of the relatives. Although 79, the resident was relatively healthy when she entered the nursing home for physical therapy. Within a month, she was dead from kidney failure after being prescribed three times the recommended dose of a painkiller and suffering from an untreated urinary tract infection. The doctor who had written the prescription had previously been restricted from prescribing drugs because he over-prescribed them, but had been hired as medical director at the nursing home anyway. The urinary tract infection went untreated because of a broken fax machine that the staff neglected to fix and therefore did not receive important medical information.
If you have lost a loved one as a result of nursing home abuse or neglect, chances are your tragedy was allowed to happen for someone else's profit. Do not let them keep their ill-gotten gains. Warn others of the dangerous conditions at the facility. Contact an experienced nursing home neglect attorney at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free consultation.
