Consumer advocates are pushing for federal agencies to increase scrutiny of a third state’s long-term care system over alleged failures to adequately protect residents with disabilities.
The Disability Law Center claims that the Utah Department of Health and Human Services is failing to exercise appropriate oversight of the state long-term care sector and is allowing taxpayer-funded reimbursements to go to facilities where seniors are victims of neglect or abuse.
The advocacy group urged the federal government to step in and investigate the Utah agency.
The law center issued a 31-page letter making the request in mid-July — addressing it to the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Office of Civil Rights and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
“As the complaint shows, going back to 2014, the DLC has brought instances of abuse and neglect, including sexual assault and death, to the attention of DHHS,” said Nate Crippes, an attorney with the DLC in a report accompanying the letter. “Unfortunately, the state has failed to take the action necessary to prevent these harms, so we are calling on federal regulators to step in and ensure Utahns with disabilities are kept safe.”
If the federal government were to begin an investigation, it would join similar efforts to enforce disability rights ongoing in Colorado and Missouri.
Provider leaders in Utah voiced their commitment to quality care, but stressed a dire need for more investment in the state’s long-term care system that will ring familiar for many other providers across the US.
“Utah’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities are committed to delivering high-quality care to their residents and adhering to state and federal guidelines,” Allison Spangler, president and CEO of the Utah Health Care Association, told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Tuesday. “Aside from the survey and regulatory process, Utah nursing homes and intermediate care facilities for Individuals with intellectual disabilities participate in a quality improvement program to gain additional funding to improve their services or products that will enhance resident care.”
Spangler stressed that UHCA supports appropriate accountability measures, but that the specifics of senior care today also reinforce the “need to foster an oversight system that is focused on doing what is best for the residents and helping nursing homes and long-term care facilities improve.”
Spangler warned that “excessive enforcement” could harm Utah seniors’ access to care, emphasizing that, “In 2023 alone, over 1,200 patients were denied admission to Utah nursing homes due to chronic underfunding and ongoing labor shortages.”
An official DHHS response to the DLC in mid-July seemed to echo those concerns.
“DHHS has a statutory role to protect Utahns AND a statutory duty to ensure services are available for them. So there are serious concerns when Utah has fewer facilities to provide needed services for vulnerable people,” the official statement reads.
The state agency also argued that it has already worked to step up its accountability powers and enforcement in recent years — including undergoing a merger of the old Department of Health and Department of Human Services that has since enabled the new single DHHS to achieve “consistent and transparent processes, better outcomes for individuals and more efficient systems.”
But Crippes told KUTV early this month that this progress was not enough to protect Utahns.
“It goes all the way back to 2014,” Crippes argued. “This is not a one-off. Again, these problems are rampant.”
