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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Law - "New Rule Enacted by Bush Administration Impedes Cases Against Nursing Homes"
Cindy Skrzycki, business columnist for the Washington Post, reports today in her column, "The Regulators," that:
The Bush administration shut off a source of information last fall about abuse and neglect in long-term care facilities that people suing nursing homes consider crucial to their cases.The change, which affects the $144 billion nursing-home industry, was enacted with no public notice or attention.
"This is pretty stunning," said Mark Kosieradzki, a plaintiff attorney in Plymouth, Minn. "Nobody was told. It was just done."
The rule designates state inspectors and Medicare and Medicaid contractors as federal employees, a group usually shielded from providing evidence for either side in private litigation.
The restrictions affect about 16,000 nursing facilities and 3 million residents in the United States. The practical effect is to force litigants to go to greater lengths, including seeking court orders, to get inspection reports or depositions for cases they are pursuing or defending. * * *
The effect of the directives has started to play out in the nation's courtrooms. Requests for information, once fairly routine, now are stalled between state and federal officials.
Anne Marie Regan, an attorney with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, a nonprofit poverty legal advocacy and research center, said the change has slowed a case she is pursuing on behalf of an 85-year-old man who was evicted from a nursing home in 2007.
Priscilla Shoemaker, legal counsel for the American Health Care Association in Washington, said nursing homes "are in the same boat" because they also have difficulty getting information on how state inspectors determine penalties, citations and orders to shut down homes.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 24, 2009 12:57 PM
Posted to General Law Related