MEMPHIS TN (IFS) -- No pictures, no video recordings, no audio recordings, no interviews, no mentioning of any abuse of seniors in group homes. When it's time for their breakfast, the attendants delivery their trays to the seniors in their rooms, whether or not their diapers from that night have been changed or not. When you are lying there in your own fecal matter and have not be cleaned up from the night before, breakfast does not look good at any cost.
Why do these patients have to wait to get their diapers changed? One, the help is poorly paid and they are usually verbally abused for not picking up the pace. The second cause of this abuse is no help. These facilities refuse to retain good help do to conditions and pay.
Medical personnel are prohibited from recording these abuses by law, according to the HIPA doctrine in Title I. Family members and others can not made visual records and report these items, because these reports violate the privacy acts of the patience.
The Memphis medical care system for seniors in group homes are in dire straits and the disrespect and treatment of our seniors is barely reported on. However, other states are fighting back with legal cases that are carrying forward into other states.
Title I: Health Care Access, Portability, and Renewability
Title I of HIPAA regulates the availability and breadth of group health plans and certain individual health insurance policies. It amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Public Health Service Act, and the Internal Revenue Code....Title I requires the coverage of and also limits restrictions that a group health plan can place on benefits for preexisting conditions. Group health plans may refuse to provide benefits relating to preexisting conditions for a period of 12 months after enrollment in the plan or 18 months in the case of late enrollment. Title I allows individuals to reduce the exclusion period by the amount of time that they had "creditable coverage" prior to enrolling in the plan and after any "significant breaks" in coverage. "Creditable coverage" is defined quite broadly and includes nearly all group and individual health plans, Medicare, and Medicaid. A "significant break" in coverage is defined as any 63 day period without any creditable coverage.
Title I also requires insurers to issue policies without exclusion to those leaving group health plans with creditable coverage (see above) exceeding 18 months, and ] renew individual policies for as long as they are offered or provide alternatives to discontinued plans for as long as the insurer stays in the market without exclusion regardless of health condition.
Some health care plans are exempted from Title I requirements, such as long-term health plans and limited-scope plans such as dental or vision plans that are offered separately from the general health plan. However, if such benefits are part of the general health plan, then HIPAA still applies to such benefits. For example, if the new plan offers dental benefits, then it must count creditable continuous coverage under the old health plan towards any of its exclusion periods for dental benefits.
An alternate method of calculating creditable continuous coverage is available to the health plan under Title I. That is, 5 categories of health coverage can be considered separately, including dental and vision coverage. Anything not under those 5 categories must use the general calculation (e.g., the beneficiary may be counted with 18 months of general coverage, but only 6 months of dental coverage, because the beneficiary did not have a general health plan that covered dental until 6 months prior to the application date). Since limited-coverage plans are exempt from HIPAA requirements, the odd case exists in which the applicant to a general group health plan cannot obtain certificates of creditable continuous coverage for independent limited-scope plans such as dental to apply towards exclusion periods of the new plan that does include those coverages.
Hidden exclusion periods are not valid under Title I (e.g., "The accident, to be covered, must have occurred while the beneficiary was covered under this exact same health insurance contract"). Such clauses must not be acted upon by the health plan and also must be re-written so that they comply with HIPAA.
To illustrate, suppose someone enrolls in a group health plan on January 1, 2006. This person had previously been insured from January 1, 2004 until February 1, 2005 and from August 1, 2005 until December 31, 2005. To determine how much coverage can be credited against the exclusion period in the new plan, start at the enrollment date and count backwards until a significant break in coverage is reached. So, the five months of coverage between August 1, 2005 and December 31, 2005 clearly counts against the exclusion period. But the period without insurance between February 1, 2005 and August 1, 2005 is greater than 63 days.
Thus, this is a significant break in coverage, and any coverage prior to it cannot be deducted from the exclusion period. So, this person could deduct five months from his exclusion period, reducing the exclusion period to seven months. Hence, Title I requires that any preexisting condition begin to be covered on August 1, 2006.
Title II: Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse; Administrative Simplification; Medical Liability Reform
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This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2010) |
However, the most significant provisions of Title II are its Administrative Simplification rules. Title II requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to draft rules aimed at increasing the efficiency of the health care system by creating standards for the use and dissemination of health care information.
These rules apply to "covered entities" as defined by HIPAA and the HHS. Covered entities include health plans, health care clearinghouses, such as billing services and community health information systems, and health care providers that transmit health care data in a way that is regulated by HIPAA.
Per the requirements of Title II, the HHS has promulgated five rules regarding Administrative Simplification: the Privacy Rule, the Transactions and Code Sets Rule, the Security Rule, the Unique Identifiers Rule, and the Enforcement Rule.
Privacy Rule
The effective compliance date of the Privacy Rule was April 14, 2003, with a one-year extension for certain "small plans". The HIPAA Privacy Rule regulates the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) held by "covered entities" (generally, health care clearinghouses, employer sponsored health plans, health insurers, and medical service providers that engage in certain transactions.)By regulation, the Department of Health and Human Services extended the HIPAA privacy rule to independent contractors of covered entities who fit within the definition of "business associates". PHI is any information held by a covered entity which concerns health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that can be linked to an individual. This is interpreted rather broadly and includes any part of an individual's medical record or payment history. Covered entities must disclose PHI to the individual within 30 days upon request. They also must disclose PHI when required to do so by law such as reporting suspected child abuse to state child welfare agencies.
Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; or to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person.
A covered entity may disclose PHI (Protected Health Information) to facilitate statment, payment, or health care operations without a patient's express written authorization. Any other disclosures of PHI (Protected Health Information) require the covered entity to obtain written authorization from the individual for the disclosure.
However, when a covered entity discloses any PHI, it must make a reasonable effort to disclose only the minimum necessary information required to achieve its purpose.
The Privacy Rule gives individuals the right to request that a covered entity correct any inaccurate PHI. It also requires covered entities to take reasonable steps to ensure the confidentiality of communications with individuals.
For example, an individual can ask to be called at his or her work number instead of home or cell phone numbers.
The Privacy Rule requires covered entities to notify individuals of uses of their PHI. Covered entities must also keep track of disclosures of PHI and document privacy policies and procedures. They must appoint a Privacy Official and a contact person responsible for receiving complaints and train all members of their workforce in procedures regarding PHI.
An individual who believes that the Privacy Rule is not being upheld can file a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR). However, according to the Wall Street Journal, the OCR has a long backlog and ignores most complaints. "Complaints of privacy violations have been piling up at the Department of Health and Human Services. Between April of 2003 and November 2006, the agency fielded 23,886 complaints related to medical-privacy rules, but it has not yet taken any enforcement actions against hospitals, doctors, insurers or anyone else for rule violations. A spokesman for the agency says it has closed three-quarters of the complaints, typically because it found no violation or after it provided informal guidance to the parties involved."
However, in July 2011, UCLA agreed to pay $865,500 in a settlement regarding potential HIPAA violations. An HHS Office for Civil Rights investigation showed that from 2005 to 2008 unauthorized employees repeatedly and without legitimate cause looked at the electronic protected health information of numerous UCLAHS patients.
Country's Worst Nursing Homes Receive Federal Insurance
November 17, 2014
The
Center for Public Integrity recently revealed that hundreds of the
country's lowest-rated nursing homes are receiving federally-backed,
guaranteed mortgages. This assistance is worth billions of dollars, so
why is it being given to facilities that harm residents and do not meet
federal safety standards? Nursing home lawyers at Pintas & Mullins offer an investigation into this issue.The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) insures mortgage loans through a little-known program with little to no oversight. Throughout the country, nursing homes (and particularly for-profit chains) routinely receive HUD-guaranteed loans, regardless of the quality of care they provide.
Another federal agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rates the country's nursing homes based on annual health inspections, staffing levels, and resident care. Take, for example, the Alden Alma Nelson Manor nursing home in Rockford, Illinois, which consistently earns the lowest possible quality rating from HHS, and has earned these abysmal ratings for the better part of a decade. Alden Alma recently paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for the deaths of three residents and incidents of abuse and sexual assault. Despite this, Cambridge Realty Capital approved a $12 million mortgage for the facility, and the HUD insured the loan.
Another Illinois facility that received an HUD loan, the Crossroads Care Center in Woodstock, has a federal one-star rating. It was also fined about $360,000 for the deaths of six residents, including allegations that a nurse purposefully overmedicated and killed residents. That nurse, Marty Himebaugh, was found guilty of felony criminal neglect.
Again, despite this, in 2013 Crossroads Care received $4.4 million in a HUD-backed loan, it's second since 2001. Similarly, the Alden Wentworth Rehabilitation nursing home on Chicago's South Side received a $10.6 million HUD loan, even after a beloved resident fell four stories at the home, prompting a senate hearing. Two years before the loan, another resident died after wrongfully receiving narcotics for three weeks.
Stories like this abound throughout Illinois and the rest of the country. HUD officials claim that they are not made aware of safety and health issues, yet how this can be true is disconcerting. Why is there no system by which HUD employees must check a facility's quality of care before financing it? Why is there no emphasis put on regulatory enforcement, or communication between agencies - particularly when it comes to our nation's most vulnerable citizens?
The Center for Public Integrity states that this type of situation is not uncommon: since 2001, hundreds of the worst-ranked nursing homes in the country have received HUD-guaranteed loans, worth about $2.5 billion. In fact, the number of one-star nursing homes receiving HUD insurance rose every year between 2009 and 2012.
An esteemed nursing professor at University of California at San Francisco said that this HUD pattern points to serious issues about the communication - or lack thereof - between government agencies, an outrageous lack of oversight, and the improper use of public funding. There hasn't been any public scrutiny over the HUD's practices, which makes a bad problem even worse.
How, When, and Why This is Allowed
As mentioned, these loans are made possible by a little-known federal program: the National Housing Act of 1959, which was enacted by Congress to make it easier for nursing homes to secure loans on reasonable terms. It was created in effort to provide a reliable stream of income to nursing homes, which previously had trouble finding loans.
This may seem like a good thing, but the program means that if nursing homes default on the loans, the public pays (about $187 million in defaults have been incurred since 1959). These mortgages have been granted to over 7,000 nursing homes; currently, about 13% of all nursing homes have HUD-guaranteed loans.
About 240 nursing homes with a one-star rating have HUD loans, with Ohio having the most of any other state (30). In Illinois, 20 one-star nursing homes have HUD loans, and California ranked third among states. For-profit nursing homes make up the large majority of one-star loan recipients, with corporations owning two-thirds (despite representing only about half of all nursing homes nationwide). Experts believe that the HUD should restrict its guaranteed loans to only non-profit nursing homes, which generally run higher quality and safer facilities. This makes sense. The government should not be financing large, for-profit, multi-billion dollar corporations.
Part of the reason these facilities are able to get away with the death and demise of residents while still securing financial backing is because the owners spend hundreds of thousands in donations to political candidates.
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