Texas nursing home fined for pressure ulcers

A Forth Worth nursing home agreed to pay $1.6 million in civil and criminal penalties to settle charges that it submitted false claims to Medicare and provided inadequate care to nursing home residents causing bed sores.  The charges included allegations that the nursing home engaged in false charting through "charting parties" to document care that was never actually provided, understaffed nursing homes, and failed to provide prescribed medications to resident .  There were also allegations that the bed sores became infested with maggots and that some residents had to have amputations done due to the bed sores.

The plea agreement included a deferred prosecution agreement which required the nursing home's owner to abide by certain conditions for a period of two years after which the criminal charges against him will be dismissed.  In the meantime, he will remain in charge of the nursing home, which will continue to receive public dollars.

Nursing homes are one of the few explicitly for-profit sectors in the health care industry, and in an effort to fatten the bottoms line, nursing home operators sometimes cut corners.  Unfortunately, shortcomings in the delivery of care over time results in residents developing conditions such as bed sores.  Put simply, they do not happen overnight, and are many times the result of business decisions which hamper the ability of nurses on the floor to deliver proper care.  This case in Texas was an especially dramatic example of that.

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