The last week has been an ugly one for nursing homes, at least if you read the consumer press.
Academics joined with journalists to trounce all over the standards by which most nursing homes run their businesses today, whether that be through a series of related parties or in conjunction with real estate investment trusts.
Similar story lines found their way into Fortune and Forbes magazines, and also onto the website of The Conversation. There, a staffing and quality expert well known in nursing home circles for her decades of careful work made it appear she has very little appetite for any kind of private ownership in the sector.
It was one of the most negative stories I’ve seen about nursing homes since the sun set on the hero phase of the pandemic and facilities began to be attacked for caring for sick people.
Those kinds of attacks may make you want to stop reading the headlines. But I hope you’ve stuck with us. Over the last few days, we’ve actually found some bright news from another arena where nursing homes are often the ones under attack: the courts.
This month, a pair of federal judges have offered strongly worded decisions regarding rascals who would attempt to undermine the healthcare system with essentially made-up claims about undelivered services.
The judges found in two separate cases that nursing homes had been targeted by False Claims Act whistleblowers whose claims were either worthless or frivolous. In one case I reported on today, the nursing home is actually getting back about $1.1 million in attorneys fees because the claims were so spurious.
In both cases, the victories went to Golden LivingCenters, a company that is today a shell of its former self, besieged by a series of lawsuits and other challenges that led to a major sell off, restructuring and rebranding of remaining nursing homes.
But the court opinions show another side. Sometimes the legal allegations — both criminal and civil — that get all the headlines turn out to in fact be just that: allegations. And when they fall through or are proven too flimsy to stand a chance in a courtroom, often the mainstream media fail to correct the message they stained on their readers’ minds.
Case in point: Last spring, a jury found a nursing home that was the site of the nation’s first major COVID-19 outbreak was not liable for the deaths of two residents, largely because guidance was quickly changing and staff took the only precautions they knew to try. The national media had dragged the Life Care Centers of America’s Kirkland, WA, facility through the mud, but when its fate was determined, it seems almost no one came back by to wipe off the residue and report the updated facts.
Surely, that happens in dozens, if not hundreds, of court cases each year. And the stains don’t just affect the targeted nursing homes. They darken the reputation of the whole sector, one where thousands of workers are every day delivering quality care that’s not sexy enough for headlines.
We know you’ll take good news where you can get it. And these two rulings certainly won’t hurt providers.
Combined, the opinions should reverberate with the plaintiffs’ bar and with individuals who look to get rich quick by forcing cash-strapped nursing homes to negotiate a sweetheart settlement and make trumped-up cases go away.
Just don’t expect to read about them in the mainstream media. They do too good a job of vindicating the kind of facilities their type loves to hate.
Kimberly Marselas is senior editor of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.
