Articles Posted in Nursing Homes

One case I have been meaning to write about for a few months is Dickerson v. Longoria, a recent opinion that I think is important for Maryland nursing home patients and their counsel.

The ultimate issue in Dickerson is whether a family member had the authority to bind a nursing home patient by agreeing to an arbitration clause. The Maryland Court of Appeals found that the relative did not.

But the larger issue is whether Maryland law allows the enforcement of a nursing home negligence arbitration agreement. I think it is hard to argue that a waiver signed at admission, even if signed by the patient, is a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of one of our most fundamental constitutional rights: the right to a jury trial.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently published a report analyzing approximately 16,000 nursing homes in this country and assigned each a rating—from one star to five stars—based on such criteria as health inspections and staffing.

In a less prolific blow than the other shots to the head delivered to the theory that an unfettered free market is always the best answer, approximately 27 percent of for-profit homes surveyed received one star, versus 13 percent of non-profit homes. At the top of the nursing home food chain, 19% of non-profit homes received five stars, compared with 9 percent of for-profit homes. From this overwhelming data, it is hard to argue that for-profit nursing homes provide an equal level of nursing home care to that of non-profit homes. While I am not sure what the profit to non-profit nursing home ratio is in Maryland, I don’t think this conclusion shocks a single Maryland nursing home lawyer. The vast majority of nursing home cases are against private, for-profit nursing homes. Continue reading