Nursing homes turn to eviction to drop difficult patients

NEW YORK -- Nursing homes are increasingly evicting their most challenging residents, testing protections for some of society's most vulnerable, advocates for the aged and disabled say.

Those targeted for eviction frequently are poor and suffering from dementia, with families unsure of what to do, according to residents' allies. Removing them allows an often-thin staff to avoid the demands of labor-intensive patients in favor of ones who are easier and more profitable.

"When they get tired of caring for the resident, they kick the resident out," said Richard Mollot of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a New York advocacy group.

Complaints and lawsuits across the U.S. point to a spike in evictions even as observers say available records give only a glimpse of the problem.

An Associated Press analysis of federal data from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program finds complaints about discharges and evictions are up 57 percent since 2000.

It was the top-reported grievance in 2014, with 11,331 such issues logged by ombudsmen, who work to resolve problems faced by residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other adult-care settings.

The American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, defends the discharge process as lawful and necessary to remove residents who can't be kept safe or who endanger the safety of others, and says processes are in place to ensure evictions aren't done improperly.

Dr. David Gifford, a senior vice president with the group, said a national policy discussion is necessary because there are a growing number of individuals with complex, difficult-to-manage cases who outpace the current model of what a nursing home offers.

"There are times these individuals can't be managed, or they require so much staff attention to manage them that the other residents are endangered," he said.

The numbers of nursing homes and residents in the U.S. have decreased in recent years; about 1.4 million people occupy about 15,600 homes now. The overall number of complaints across a spectrum of issues has fallen in the past decade, though complaints about evictions are down only slightly from their high-water mark in 2007, the federal figures show.

Meanwhile, the share of complaints that evictions and discharges represent has steadily grown, holding the top spot since 2010.

Advocates say offending facilities routinely flout federal law, attempting to exploit and widen justifications for discharge.

They say hospitalizations are a common time when facilities seek to purge residents, even though the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 guarantees Medicaid recipients' beds must be held in their nursing homes during hospital stays of up to a week.

"They try and take the easy way out and refuse to let the person back in," said Eric Carlson, an attorney who has contested evictions for the advocacy group Justice in Aging.

Bruce Anderson, 66, suffered a brain injury more than a decade ago and had been through several transfers before ending up at Norwood Pines Alzheimer's Care Center in Sacramento, California.

His daughter, Sara Anderson, said the facility began insisting it wasn't an appropriate setting for him, and after he was hospitalized with pneumonia, he wasn't allowed back.

She saw the action as retaliatory after complaints about her father's care. She appealed the the facility's action and won but said it still refused to let him back.

Norwood Pines did not return calls seeking comment.