Maryland Sues Nursing Homes for Kicking Out Residents When the Medicare Payments Stop

It’s not often that a government entity sues a nursing home operator for how they treat their residents, which is why private lawsuits like the ones we file for our clients are usually the only way for residents and their families to try to obtain justice.  But one operator’s ongoing treatment of residents was so blatantly wrong that Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh sued it in December. Neiswanger Management Services (NMS), which operates five nursing homes in the state, is accused of aggressively and illegally removing residents from its facilities to maximize payments it collects from public health plans. After being kicked out of their nursing homes, many residents were dropped off at homeless shelters or unlicensed and unsafe senior living facilities, according to the complaint filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, reports the Washington Post. The company, based in Hyattsville, is alleged to be basing the treatment of residents on the reimbursement differences between federally funded Medicare and Medicaid, which uses state and federal money to pay for health care for low-income patients, including a large number of nursing home residents. NMS is accused of deciding who is treated and who leaves to maximize the number of residents with Medicare whose more than $500-a-day reimbursement is about twice what Medicaid pays. The complaint states patients were illegally discharged without their consent once their Medicare coverage ran out (normally 100 days after admission) and without the required planning to put them in a “safe and secure environment.” It’s estimated that there are about 700 residents in NMS’s Maryland nursing homes. Under the law, when NMS involuntarily discharges a resident it must give the person a notice, and the resident must have an opportunity to be heard and possibly fight the discharge. In nearly all such

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