Bill to shield nursing homes from lawsuits clears Senate along party lines; not looking healthy in House despite TV, radio ads

Last week the state Senate approved on party lines a bill that would make lawsuits against nursing homes go through a review panel first. Republicans supported the bill and Democrats voted against it in a 23-12 vote that marked the clearest partisan split in the Senate in this year's legislative session.

Senate Bill 9 would create medical review panels of three physicians and an attorney moderator to hear complaints against long-term care facilities and vote on whether the suit had enough merit to go to court.  The bill's sponsor, Senate Health and Welfare Chairwoman Julie Denton, R-Louisville, declind to answer an opposign senator's questions about the bill. She said in introducing it that the panel would be advisory but its opinion would be admissible in court and would curb such lawsuits, reports Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Bills like this have failed in years past and could have diverse implications for Kentucky communities and nursing homes. At least one Kentucky newspaper looked around and found that lawsuits are one reason Extendicare Health Services Inc. shed management responsibilities last year for all 21 of its facilities in Kentucky, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville.

Without Extendicare management in Western Kentucky, the volume of nursing-home lawsuits in the region appears to be shrinking, Tabor reports. In recent years, nearly all the Christian County cases that have been closed were dismissed through settlements, not by judges declaring them unfounded. This suggests the bill would minimally affect the county, writes Tabor. Other Kentucky communities may be affected differently; judges differ from circuit to circuit.

Although the bill passed the Senate, it appears to be on its deathbed in the House. Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, who chairs the House Health and Welfare Committee, joked about its prospects to Tabor: “I can’t make any predictions about the bill this time, but I’ve called in three priests to have the last rites ready.” If nursing homes received this new layer of protection, he said, hospitals and day-care centers would want it too.

A similar bill died in Burch's committee last year; this version is being supported by television and radio commercials urging viewers and listeners to call their legislators in support. When Extendicare announced last spring it was transferring management of all its Kentucky facilities to a Texas company, it cited Kentucky’s “worsening litigation environment” and said tort reform seemed unlikely here.

Bernie Vonderheide, director of Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, said most so-called “frivolous” lawsuits would cease if the state imposed minimum staffing requirements on nursing homes, his group's main legislative goal. (Read more)

Nursing homes push for lawsuit protection with fast-moving bill and broadcast ads; newspaper editorials excoriate sponsor, industry

A state Senate committee has approved a bill that would require lawsuits against nursing homes to clear a review panel before going to court, a move that has drawn very sharp criticism from the editorial pages of the state's two largest newspapers. Meanwhile, the nursing-home industry is running television and radio ads urging calls to legislators in favor of the measure, which the Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved 7-4 last Wednesday without hearing from its opponents.

"Slimy action on questionable bill" read the headline over Tuesday's Lexington Herald-Leader's editorial, which began, "Good ideas can withstand criticism. So, when lawmakers move a piece of legislation without hearing from any of its opponents, you have to wonder whether they're sneaking through a stinker."

The chairman of the committee and the bill's sponsor, Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville, said some members had to leave for other meetings. "But somehow they had time to listen to industry spokesmen before voting," the Herald-Leader noted. "The nursing home industry claims that it is under siege from frivolous lawsuits drummed up by attorneys advertising for clients and that this legal threat pushes up nursing homes' insurance and legal costs, taking money that otherwise could go into patient care." (Read more)

The Courier-Journal editorial, which first reported the committee's action, accused Denton of "a brazen abuse of her power as committee chairman" and said sarcastically that she was "humane" to spare members of he committee "the ugly details of nursing home neglect and abuse. . . . Why should members, before lunch, have to consider graphic testimony about bedsores, near-starvation, dehydration and bowel obstructions suffered by elderly, helpless people? But for members of the General Assembly who are interested in the facts, here are some:

• Kentucky currently has about 23,000, mostly frail, elderly people who are residents in about 280 nursing homes. About half the homes have been cited by federal inspectors for a serious deficiency since 2009.
• 40 percent of the homes are rated at below average by the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services when it comes to basic health and safety.
• In 2012, Kentucky ranked first in overall federal fines for violations and one Kentucky nursing home racked up the nation’s highest fines for the year.
• Kentucky ranks first in serious nursing home deficiencies that threaten the safety of residents. (Read more)

Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, who called Denton's move "blatantly wrong." has filed several floor amendments to the bill, which remained in the Senate Rules Committee Monday.

The Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities is pushing the bill with TV and radio commercials urging calls to legislators. It placed $9,464 worth of ads on Lexington TV stations through Feb. 14.

Information on CNA Job Description

After completing the CNA program and acquiring the CNA license, the next step is to begin your CNA career. So, you need to be aware of different types of job you will require to do in the future. Remember job of a CNA is not so simple. Most of the certified nursing assistants perform their duties in hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities. CNAs are the professionals who offer primary treatments to the aging, recovering or terminal patients. Thus, it is necessary that a CNA needs to be ready for the job. CNA training schools can prepare the students for this specific job.

CNAs can work in different settings including hospitals, hospice, nursing homes, psychiatric care center, adult homes, rehabilitation center, long term care unit and other healthcare facilities. Similarly, then can even work as private nursing assistants in home, travel, military and schools. However, the CNA job description differs as per the health settings. The job description of a CNA in one facility can be different from another.

General CNA Job Description

Typically, the CNA job description involves personal care including dressing, feeding and bathing of patients. They may also need to help the patients in brushing teeth and combing hair. They help to transfer the patients from location to another as required. When the patients are recovering certified nursing assistants need to help them with wide range of group and motion activities including daily exercises.

Mental Health Care

The duties of CNAs employed in hospitals differ from that of CNAs in mental health care unit. In this unit, nursing assistants will have to deal with people who have anxiety, trauma conditions, behavioral disturbances, mood disorders, suicidal tendencies, along with other signs of mental sickness. CNAs work under the direct supervision of registered nurses in this setting. Normally the job description includes gathering and documenting the data, giving emotional support, respecting the rights and independence of the patients, maintaining privacy and confidentiality of patients, and other duties as per the necessity.

Nursing professionals who work in mental health care unit should have excellent communication and interpersonal skills. They should be able to work closely with the members of emergency department. In order to report the condition of patients to the superiors good communication skill is essential.

Private Nursing Assistant

A CNA is hired privately in this setting, which means the nursing assistant perform the duties inside the home of patient. The duties of CNAs in this setting include helping the patient in grooming, feeding, bathing, administering glucose injection, counting and measuring the vital signs, and measuring the consumption of liquid.

The nursing assistants also assist the patients in moving around either by wheel chair or through walking. They may even require performing some other duties such as cleaning the rooms, changing bed linens and emptying bed pans. Sometimes they also need to do cooking of food, housekeeping and several other duties.

There is no doubt the job description of a CNA is quite tiresome. Because of this the nursing assistants need to have strength to perform their duties during their shifts. It may be difficult but it is surely a rewarding job.

Author Bio: Scott Garcia is a career counselor with many years of blogging experience. Know how to become an ultrasound tech right from him.

New tool allows analysis of nursing-home deficiencies across the country; Kentucky seems to rank high in serious problems

Reporters now have a tool at their fingertips that will allow them to find nursing home problems in facilities across Kentucky, which appears to ranks high in serious problems.(iStock photo)

The tool was launched this week by ProPublica, a nonprofit, investigative news group, and allows "anyone to easily search and analyze the details of recent nursing home inspections, most completed since January 2011," report Charles Ornstein and Lena Groeger.

The tool has features that the federal government's Nursing Home Compare doesn't have, including the ability to search using any keyword. Results can also be sorted according to the severity of the violation and by state.

About 1.5 million people still live in nursing homes nationwide, though more seniors are living at home or in assisted-living facilities. The reports show there were almost 118,000 deficiencies cited against 14,565 homes. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the average number of deficiencies for a nursing home inspected in the U.S. is eight and the average in Kentucky is seven.

ProPublica's analysis shows Kentucky ranked fourth nationwide for the most "K" and "L" deficiencies, considered the most serious kind. The state had 45 in the analysis, as did South Carolina. Texas had the most in the country by far, however, with 183. 

While ProPublica does rank the states, nursing home industry officials say "inspectors in different regions of the country have different thresholds for issuing a citation, and that could unfairly make one state's homes appear worse than another's," Ornstein and Groeger report. (Read more)

Cost of long-term-care insurance going up, but it's still a wise investment, depending on your income

Judy Witte says her long-term-care insurance premiums
are going up at a worrying rate. C-J photo by Matt Stone.

Seniors are facing increases in their premiums for long-term-care insurance as insurance companies scramble to deal with increasing longevity of seniors and low interest rates that are "crimping investment returns," Chris Otts reports for The Courier-Journal.

Louisville retiree Judy Witte, 72, said she received a letter from her insurance company recently saying her premiums will go up by 77 percent, from $986 to $1,746 per year.

Her situation is part of a larger trend in which the cost of an average policy has increased by 6 to 17 percent from 2011 to 2012. Long-term-care insurance helps pay for the cost of assisted living, nursing homes, hospice care and home care.

In the Louisville area, assisted living costs about $45,000 per year and nursing homes cost about $72,000 per year and more.

People should buy long-term-care insurance if they can't afford the care they might need without dipping into their savings, Otts reports. "For example, someone who receives $100,000 a year in retirement income but spends only $30,000 might be able to afford an assisted-living center or nursing home," Otts notes. But if that same person spends $80,000 a year, then it would be a wise investment to buy long-term-care insurance because they would not be able to afford the assisted living or nursing home costs.

The right time to buy long-term-care insurance is between age 50 and 60. If Witte had waited to buy hers today, it would have cost her more than $26,000 a year, Otts reports. "To me, it's a precious possession," she said. "It helps me sleep at night to know I have this." (Read more)

Most Ky. nursing homes give more antipsychotic drugs to non-psychotic patients than U.S. median, but get little attention so far

Most Kentucky nursing homes exceeded the national average of the share of residents without psychosis or a related condition who nevertheless received antipsychotic drugs, according to federal data gathered by The Boston Globe and distributed by Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform.

The data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services showed that 16.7 percent of patients fell into that category, and that 161 of the 280 Kentucky nursing facilities for which data were available exceeded the national average. Twenty had percentages more than double the national average, and three were more than triple: the Glasgow State Nursing Facility, at 62 percent; Arbor Place of Clinton, 61 percent; and the nursing home at Western State Hospital in Hopkinsville, 60 percent.

The data are for 2010. Nursing homes were not included if there were no data on antipsychotic drug use. Some data were taken from 2009 because no 2010 data were available. The Globe put the data into an easily reviewable database, available here, the Kentucky reform group issued a press release about it on June 14, and Kentucky Health News reported it on June 22.

However, only two Kentucky newspapers have reported on the survey and a local facility that exceeded the national average, according to our limited subscriptions and the news-clipping service subscribed to by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and shared with Kentucky Health News. Those were the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville, which mentioned several facilities in its area (Western State's director said state policy prevented him from commenting), and The Anderson News of Lawrenceburg. Its June 20 edition had a story focusing on Heritage Hall in Lawrenceburg, where 20 percent of non-psychotic patients received antipsychotic drugs.

A spokesman for Heritage Hall's operator, Elmcroft Senior Living and Memory Care of Louisville, told Anderson News Editor Ben Carlson that physicians "may choose to prescribe a medication such as antipsychotics without a diagnosis of psychosis or related condition such as controlling a patient's anxiety over a specific disease process."

Bernie Vonderheide, spokesman for the reform group, told Carlson that it suspects that many nursing homes use the drugs to keep patients under control and to avoid hiring more staff. "That is the single biggest problem in nursing homes, the lack of caregivers." (Read more; the New Era's story is behind a pay wall.)

Besides the Glasgow, Clinton and Hopkinsville facilities, the following had a percentage of non-psychotic patients receiving antipsychotic drugs that was more than double the national average:

Dawson Pointe, Dawson Springs 49%
Dover Manor, Georgetown, 49%
Edgemont Health Care, Cythiana, 46%
Pineville Community Hospital, Pineville, 44%
Edgewood Estates, Frenchburg, 42%
Wesley Manor Nursing Center, Louisville, 42%
Wellington Parc of Owensboro, 42%
Stanton Nursing Center, Stanton, 41%
Shady Lawn Nursing Home, Cadiz, 41%
Charleston Health Care Center, Danville, 37.5%
Breckinridge Memorial Nursing Facility, Hardinsburg, 37%
Cedar Ridge Health Campus, Cynthiana, 37%
Brighton Cornerstone Health Care, Madisonville, 36%
Carmel Home, Owensboro, 36%
Ridgeway Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility, Owingsville, 36%
J.J. Jordan Geriatric Center, Louisa, 35%
Medco Center of Henderson, 35%
Wolfe County Health and Rehabilitation Center, Campton, 34%
(Figures are rounded to the nearest percentage unless .5)

Large percentage of patients with dementia given drugs they don't need; see how your nursing home is doing

Kentucky reporters can now see how the nursing homes in their area are treating patients with dementia. The Boston Globe has published a list of all the nursing homes in the country that shows the percentage of residents without psychosis or a related condition but who are being given antipsychotic drugs. The data came from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Almost 40 percent of nursing home residents with dementia are on powerful antipsychotic drugs though they don't have psychosis or a related condition, federal regulators announced at the end of May. Their aim is to cut the use of these drugs on these patients by 15 percent by the end of this year.

The median use nationwide for patients being given antipsychotic drugs but who don't have psychosis is 16.7 percent. In Kentucky, 161 of 280 nursing homes surveyed were over the median number, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform.

To see how your nursing home is doing, click here. (Read more)

Louisville has highest concentration of nursing-home and extended-care companies in U.S.

Louisville has the largest concentration of nursing-home and extended-care companies in the country. Of the 570,000 people who call Louisville home, 4,000 work in the industry and produce $28 billion in revenue, reports Frank Browning for Kaiser Health News. (Kaiser photo illustration)

Though the city didn't intend to become the leader in the long-term care industry, companies opted to cluster around each other, with Humana the nucleus of the movement. "As its influence grew, the health insurance giant created spinoffs and attracted like-minded businesses, including a growing number of companies dealing with long-term care," Browning writes, without noting that Humana itself began as a nursing-home company, Extendicare, then evolved into a hospital firm and an insurance company.

There are seven key players in theindustry who have headquarters in the city: Kindred Healthcare, Trilogy Health Services, Atria Senior Living Group, Elmcroft Senior Living, ResCare, and Signature Health Care. Those companies then attracted firms such as RecoverCare and PharMerica. "It's been an evolution," Christian Furman, a gerontologist at the University of Louisville medical school, told Browning.

One of the key moves was attracting Signature, which has 73 long-term care facilities in seven states, from Florida to Kentucky. A promise of up to $4 million of corporate income tax credits in 10 years helped, but "access to talent was most important. There's an incredible amount of expertise here," said CEO Joe Steier.

The clincher was "the whole alignment of public and private support, including the University of Louisville, that has made the city into a national and international center for aging care companies," Steier said. (Read more)

Nursing home chain says it will lease its Kentucky facilities because legislature didn't pass bill to filter lawsuits

A major nursing-home chain says it will lease all of its Kentucky properties to a Texas company because a bill to insulate nursing homes from lawsuits did not pass the General Assembly this year,

Extendicare Health Services owns Pembroke Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Shady Lawn Nursing Home in Cadiz and 19 other facilities in Kentucky, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville. The company has been riddled with problems. A 2009 study ranked three of its Kentucky facilities among the country's worst nursing homes.

"The combination of a worsening litigation environment and the lack of any likelihood of tort reform in the state of Kentucky has made this the prudent decision for our company and its unitholders," said Tim Lukenda, president and CEO of Extendicare.

In this year's legislative session, nursing homes lobbied for a law that would have created medical review panels to evaluate potential lawsuits against nursing homes, personal-care homes and some facilities for the intellectually and developmentally disabled. The goal of the panel was to help eliminate frivolous lawsuits against the long-term care industry.

The Pembroke facility has been sued 20 times in Christian Circuit Court since 2002, and seven of the suits are still pending, Tabor reports. The others were dismissed, most with confidential settlements. (Read more)

531 deficiencies found in 80 Kentucky nursing homes in first quarter of 2012; worst one had 29; five had none

State inspectors found 531 deficiencies in 80 Kentucky nursing homes in the first quarter of this year, with one facility accounting for 29 of them alone: Life Care Center of Morehead. In five nursing homes, no deficiencies were found.

The information was released by Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, a nonprofit organization that advocates for nursing home residents and obtains the data regularly through open-records requests to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and distributes it statewide. The information is posted as part of Medicare's nursing-home comparison data.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the average number of deficiencies for a nursing home inspected in the U.S. is eight and the average in Kentucky is seven. Inspections assess a facility on the care of residents and how that care is administered; on how staff and residents interact; and on its environment. Certified nursing homes must meet more than 180 regulatory standards. The state Office of Inspector General website has more data, such as the results of inspections and the ownership of each facility.

Nursing homes with 10 or more deficiencies in the first quarter were:
• Life Care Center of Morehead (29 deficiencies)
• Kindred Transitional Care & Rehab-Fountain Circle in Winchester (24)
• Signature Health of Pikeville (19)
• Hearthstone Place in Elkton (15)
• Martin County Health Care Facility in Inez (14)
• Wesley Manor Nursing Center in Louisville (13)
• Pembroke Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Pembroke (13)
• Highlands Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Louisville (11)
• Mountain Manor of Paintsville (11)
• Cumberland Valley Manor in Burkesville (10)
• Klondike Care and Rehabilitation Center in Louisville (10)

The five nursing homes with no deficiencies were:
• Clark Regional Medical Center in Winchester
• Nazareth Home in Louisville
• Essex Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Louisville
• Barren County Health Care Center in Glasgow
• Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Center in Lexington (initial inspection; under new ownership)

For more information about Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, click here.

Effort to boost oral health in nursing homes gets tangled up with industry's attempt to insulate itself from lawsuits; both bills die

A bill to get nursing-home residents better dental services "appears to be dead after the Senate added language from another bill designed to shield the nursing-home industry from litigation," Deborah Yetter reports for The Courier-Journal.

House Bill 510 would have created a pilot project for the state's two dental schools to create "a program to provide better oral-health services to nursing home residents," Yetter writes. "But on Wednesday, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee added language from another bill that had stalled in the House that would require people who want to file malpractice lawsuits against nursing homes to first submit the complaint to a 'medical review panel'." (Read more) 

Bill passed that would require fingerprint background checks at nursing homes

The state House has approved a bill requiring long-term care facilities to run background checks using fingerprinting technology, a move that would be mostly funded by a $3 million federal grant. The state will kick in $1 million.

The House approved the measure 62-36, though many lawmakers are worried about who is going to pay for the effort when the grant runs out in three years. Background checks cost between $60 and $80.

Now, long-term care facilities must "do a name-based background check," reports Beth Musgrave for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "However, those background checks only look at state records. A fingerprint check can search nationally for criminal records."

Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, said he was unsure if House Bill 250 will pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. (Read more)

Jury tells nursing home: Pay $8 million to estate of man whose legs employees broke; homes seek legislative insulation from suits

A Louisville nursing home was ordered to pay $8 million in damages last week to the estate of a retired surgeon whose legs were broken while he was being transferred from a chair to his bed at Treyton Oak Towers. He died less than two months later.

The incident happened to Dr. David Griffin in September 2008. Griffin, who had suffered a stroke, was put back in bed "like it didn't happen," attorney Matt Minner said. Employees reportedly were told to change medical records and cover up the act. Because of his condition from the stroke, Griffin couldn't tell anyone "about the agony he was in," Minner told The Courier-Journal.

Treyton Oak Towers plans to appeal the ruling. Its attorney, Scott Whonsetler, told newspaper that "Griffin had severe osteoporosis and doctors failed to inform nursing home employees of the diagnosis," Andrew Wolfson and Jason Riley report . "We categorically deny that there was any coverup whatsoever" after the incident, Whonsetler said.

The verdict, returned after about two hours of deliberation, includes $2 million for pain and suffering, $1 million for violating the state nursing home statute and $5 million in punitive damages. (Read more)

The verdict comes after the introduction of House Bill 361, which would establish medical review panels. Under the proposal, panel members would consider whether civil litigation against a nursing home is warranted before it is sent to court. The purpose of the panel would be to prevent frivolous lawsuits, but "could deny nursing home residents access to the courts of law," reads a press release by Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, a nonprofit organization that advocates for nursing home residents. The bill was introduced Feb. 1 but has not been posted for consideration by the House Health and Welfare Committee.

455 deficiencies found in 72 Kentucky nursing homes in fourth quarter of 2011

State inspectors found 455 deficiencies in 72 Kentucky nursing homes in the fourth quarter of 2011, with one facility accounting for 25 of them alone: Kindred Transitional Care & Rehab-Fountain Circle in Winchester.

The information was released by Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, a nonprofit organization that advocates for nursing home residents and obtains the data regularly through open-records requests to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and distributes it statewide. The information is posted as part of Medicare's nursing-home comparison data.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the average number of deficiencies for a nursing home inspected in the U.S. is eight and the average in Kentucky is seven. Inspections assess a facility on the care of residents and how that care is administered; on how staff and residents interact; and on its environment. Certified nursing homes must meet more than 180 regulatory standards. The state Office of Inspector General website has more data, such as the results of inspections and the ownership of each facility.

Nursing homes with 10 or more deficiencies in the fourth quarter of 2011 were:

• Bridge Point Care and Rehabilitation Center, Florence (22)

• Pineville Community Hospital (17)

• North Hardin Health & Rehabilitation Center, Radcliff (15)

• Richmond Place Rehabilitation and Health Center, Lexington (13)

• Hart County Health Care Center, Horse Cave (13)

• Parkview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Pikeville (13)

• West Liberty Nursing & Rehabilitation Center (13)

• Redbanks, Henderson (12)

• Knox County Hospital, Barbourville (11)

• The Forum at Brookside, Louisville (11)

• Bradford Square Care and Rehabilitation Center, Frankfort (10)

• Florence Park Care Center (10)

• Boyd Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Ashland (10)

• Corbin Health & Rehabilitation Center (10)

For more information about Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, click here.

Bills would require more assessment before a patient can be admitted to a personal-care home

Legislation dubbed "Larry's Law" is aimed at preventing what happened to Larry Lee from happening again.

House Bill 307, filed by Democratic Rep. Terry Mills, right, "would require an individual to be examined and assessed by a medical professional before admission to a personal care home, and it would require further assessment of the degree of disability for an individual with an acquired brain injury who was being considered for placement," report Valarie Honeycutt Spears and Beth Musgrave of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Senate Bill 115, filed by Republican Sen. Jimmy Higdon, left, would require that a potential resident be evaluated by a mental health professional before someone is admitted to a personal care home, a cost that would be picked up by the state. Higdon and Mills are both from Lebanon, where Larry Lee lived until he went to Falmouth Nursing Home in Pendleton County.

In August, Lee, right, disappeared from the home, one of 82 free-standing personal care homes in Kentucky. Lee, who had a brain injury from childhood, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and diabetes. He was found dead four week after his disappearance on the banks of the Licking River, which flows through Falmouth.

A pre-admission assessment "is the only thing that we found that could have saved Larry Lee," Higdon said. "His condition was too severe. He should have never been in a personal care home." (Read more)

Free seminar on guardianship to be offered Feb. 26 in Lexington

Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform will provide the opportunity to learn from experts about guardianship Feb. 26. More than 23,000 Kentuckians live in nursing homes.

Lexington attorneys Carolyn Kenton and Robert McClelland will speak, along with Virgiel Clayton, director of the Division of Guardianship in the Department of Aging and Independent Living.

The seminar, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Tates Creek Branch of the Lexington Public Library. For more information, click here.

Nursing homes want panel to review lawsuits against them

"A long-term care industry group wants a new law in Kentucky that would create medical review panels to evaluable potential lawsuits against nursing homes, personal care homes and some facilities for the intellectually and developmentally disabled," reports Valarie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The panel would be made up of three physicians and chaired by an attorney who would not be allowed to vote. The panel's findings would be admissible in court. The panel would "help eliminate frivolous lawsuits against the long-term care industry," said Ruby Jo Cummins Lubarsky, president of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities. "Kentucky's long-term care profession has seen a drastic increase in litigation from lawyers whose sole practice has been limited to targeting our nursing facilities. Their primary tactic is to exploit the integrity of our survey process with misleading advertisements designed to alarm the public about a supposed failure to provide quality care in our facilities."

The Kentucky Justice Association, formerly the Kentucky Academy of Trial Attorneys, is against the proposal because it "makes nursing home corporations less accountable for the neglect and abuse of Kentucky's elderly citizens," said Maresa Fawns, the association's executive director. Bernie Vonderheide, founder of Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, is also opposed, saying the formation of medical review panels is "blatantly unfair to residents of nursing homes."

The proposal has not yet been filed for the 2012 General Assembly. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a lawyer, has said he "would never support any measure that would deny a person his or her day in court if injured," but added he understands "that small, rural nursing homes are in extreme jeopardy because of out-of-state predatory law firms. Given that, the only responsible thing is to gather information on the issue and keep an open mind." (Read more)

Nursing-home violations went up in third quarter, but a record 8 facilities had no deficiencies

In the third quarter of 2011, inspectors found 403 deficiencies in 56 Kentucky nursing homes, an average of 7.2, up from 5.9 in the second quarter. But no deficiencies were found in eight facilities, the first time that has happened in so many.

"I guess you could call that progress," Bernie Vonderheide of Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform told The Courier-Journal's Deborah Yetter. The non-profit organization advocates for nursing home residents and obtains this data regularly through open-records requests to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and distributes it statewide. The information is posted as part of Medicare's nursing-home comparison data.

Inspections assess a facility on the care of residents and how that care is administered; on how staff and residents interact; and on its environment. Certified nursing homes must meet more than 180 regulatory standards. The state Office of Inspector General website has more data, such as the results of inspections and the ownership of each facility.

Nursing homes with 10 or more deficiencies in the third quarter were: Christopher East Health Care Center, Louisville, 20; Glasgow Health & Rehabilitation Center, Glasgow (18); Springhurst Health and Rehab, Louisville (17); Woodland Terrace Health Care, Elizabethtown (16); Parkview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Pikeville (16); Windsor Care Center, Mount Sterling (14); Bluegrass Care & Rehabilitation Center, Lexington (14); The Good Samaritan Society, Jeffersontown (12); Green Valley Health & Rehabilitation Center, Carrolton (12); Carmel Manor, Fort Thomas (12); Breckinridge Memorial Nursing Facility, Hardinsburg (11); Glenview Health Care Facility, Glasgow (11), Professional Care Health & Rehabilitation Center, Hartford (11); Salyersville Health Care Center (10); Stanton Nursing Center, Stanton (10); Colonial Health and Rehabilitation Center, Bardstown (10); Owsley County Health Care Center, Booneville (10); and Edgemont Healthcare, Cynthiana (10).

Nursing homes with no deficiencies were: Lourdes Transitional Care (Paducah); Westport Place Health Campus (Louisville); Carter Nursing & Rehabilitation Center (Grayson); Regional Medical Center of Hopkins County (Madisonville); Belle Meade Home (Greenville); Robertson County Health Care Facility (Mount Olivet); Windsor Gardens (Bardstown); and the Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary (Nerinx).

For the first time, inspection results were also released for assisted-living facilities. Inspectors found 19 deficiencies at Charleston Assisted Living in Danville, by far the highest number among the 10 facilities inspected. Other inspection results at assisted living facilities were: The Harrod Assisted Living, Harrodsburg (12); Highland Ridge Assisted Living, Glasgow (7); Atria Highland Crossing, Fort Wright (6); Bluegrass Assisted Living, Elizabethtown (4); Bowling Green Retirement Village, Bowling Green (4); Trinity Station Retirement Community, Flatwoods (4); The Neighborhood of Somerset, Somerset (2); Twin Oaks Assisted Living, New Castle (2); and The Village of Lebanon, Lebanon (2). There are 100 assisted-living facilities in Kentucky. (Read more)

Nursing home ombudsman program at risk because of 'callous and apparenly clueless' move by feds, advocate writes

The Kentucky long-term care ombudsman program is at risk in Kentucky due to a change in federal policy. The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is "quietly telling some state aging leaders that by Jan. 1 they will no longer be allowed to use civil monetary penalty funds to help pay for the nursing home ombudsman program in their states," Bernie Vonderheide, president and founder of Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, writes an op-ed piece in The Courier-Journal.

The civil penalties are assessed for violations in nursing homes. In Kentucky, the fund contains about $15 million. But if the move by CMS goes through, Kentucky "stands to lose more than a half million dollars a year from the CMP fund that has gone into supporting full-time ombudsmen in all of the 15 area development districts in the state," Vonderheide writes. "We are concerned about the callous and apparently clueless action by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It is obvious that the Washington bureaucrats who make decisions like this have never been in a nursing home and are oblivious to the needs of the people."

Nursing-home ombudsmen investigate alleged abuse and neglect in facilities, and visit residents. "In the average nursing home, surveys show that more than half the residents never have a visitor — family member or friend — except for one, and that's the ombudman," Vonderheide writes. "We can't lose our nursing home residents' best friends — those angels of mercy, the ombudsmen." (Read more)

Jury tells nursing home to pay $1 million to former resident

A Fayette County jury has decided that Lexington's Cambridge Place Nursing Home will have to pay more than $1 million in damages to a former resident who fell and was found in an equipment storage room with broken bones in her face.

In January 2009, Irene Hendrix, who has Alzheimer's disease, was reportedly walking up and down a hall using a Merry Walker, which is a walker that has a seat. At some point, Hendrix, right, fell and was found with bleeding in her brain, a 4-centimeter cut on her forehead and the broken bones, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Valarie Honeycutt Spears reports. Hendrix's daughter and guardian filed a lawsuit against the facility later that year, alleging negligence.

After two hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Hendrix $1 million for physical pain, suffering and mental anguish. It also awarded Hendrix more than $27,000 for her medical bills. "A jury spoke today regarding the level of care they expect for their loved ones in nursing homes in Fayette County," plaintiff's lawyer Scott Owens said.

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General previously investigated Hendrix's case and a state adult-protection worker "determined that Hendrix was a victim of caretaker neglect and had been exposed to an extreme safety risk," Spears reports. "The protection worker told the attorney general's office that she thought Hendrix's injuries were the result of an accident." The attorney general's office closed the case in March 2009. (Read more)