Lawsuit: Fairfax Nursing Home Forced Elderly to Undergo Useless Treatments; Settlement is $700,000
The allegations include billing Medicare for watching patients get dressed. Billions of dollars involved in such cases.
A Fairfax City-based nursing home agreed to settle and pay $700,000 on Feb. 13 in a nearly two-year lawsuit that accused the nursing treatment center of claiming Medicare for unnecessary rehabilitation therapy services.
Former employees of the Fairfax Nursing Center (FNC) filed the suit in May 2011, alleging the nursing center gave "excessive, medically unnecessary, or otherwise non-reimbursable physical, occupational, and speech therapy services" to 37 Medicare beneficiaries who were customers of FNC, according to the Department of Justice.
Some of the services, provided between January 2007 and December 2010, were allegedly given to obtain higher reimbursement rates.
“Today’s settlement is another example of the department’s efforts to hold skilled nursing facilities accountable for the rehabilitation therapy services they deliver to some of the most vulnerable in our society,” said Stuart F. Delery, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.
The False Claims Act has resulted in the collection of almost $10.2 billion from cases like this since January 2009, the Department of Justice said.
Former FNC therapists Christine Ribik, Nadine Kelly and Stephanie Beauregard filed the suit filed under the False Claims Act after allegedly witnessing the nursing center threaten to fire its employees if they discussed discharge options with patients.
They also accused Fairfax Nursing Center of claiming reimbursement when no skilled therapy services were provided. They noticed other employees claim skilled therapy time for watching patients dress themselves, or dragging patients who were completely debilitated and "close to death" around the facility.
The complaint said FNC would allegedly threaten its therapists to find a way to continue providing services even after a patient refused treatment and wouldn't benefit from it. One such patient allegedly had terminal cancer and couldn't benefit from therapy services yet continued to receive them, despite the patient's complaints, until the patient died.
"FNC management dictates in advance the treatment each patient will receive" without considering the patient's need or lack thereof, the complaint reads.
Ribik, Kelly and Beauregard will receive a collective $122,500 of the settlement funds.
The owners of FNC, Robert and Charmaine Bainum, also own The Gardens at Fair Oaks, at 4310 Forest Hill Dr., and The Woodlands Retirement Community, at 4320 Forest Hill Dr.
The Gardens at Fair Oaks offers therapy and a variety of special services for residents with dementia; it's not clear if those services were investigated in the course of the lawsuit.
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In This article
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Fairfax Nursing Center
10701 Main St, Fairfax, VA -
The Woodlands Retirement Community
4320 Forest Hill Dr, Fairfax, VA
Jamie Jones
2:56 pm on Thursday, February 21, 2013
I can name a nursing home right now, in our area, that has kept a woman in the skilled unit of the nursing home, for months with no need. The skilled unit costs more money but with no one to follow up on her, they have chosen to leave her there. She is a cash paying customer.....what a shame..
Lin Andrews
9:36 pm on Thursday, February 21, 2013
My daughter worked there at the time and this never happened like that. Sounds like extortion.
LaLa
11:03 pm on Thursday, February 21, 2013
This is a tragedy... because Medicare paid attention to 3 people who where lieing for their own benefit rather than talk to the real people doing the work who gave the patients that best care and the best therapy they wouldnt get in any other nursing home. The examples given are not true. I worked there for 9 years and left when the therapy dept. was forced to change because of these claims and in turn the quality of care drastically declined. This just shows you, don't believe what you read!
senior medicare protector
10:33 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
HORRAY - SENIORS SAVING MEDICARE!!! My nephew sent me this as I have moved out of town.I was a patient There. I saw people sleeping during therapy, patients got scabbies, therapist givng toy games like children peg boards & insulting us senior citiznes trying to convince us it was theraPy. I was forced to make a grilled cheese sandwich on a stove 2 ft away from a toilet! Shame on you Junita- you were my OT . You are the one who is lying,you forced me to waste precious Medicare monies so you could get your quota. Seniors- my nephew works for CMS - said they are paid by the therapy minutes. The more they bill the more they make, I was left aloNE while therapist left the room to work with 2 or 3 other patient. How has the therapy department been forced to change - are you now saying the Bainums are condoning poorer quality of care. I guess they WERE not fined enough! By the way the Senors whould know these theapist were pain over $90,000 ! GO to the Department of justice web site. Read the court record, you will learn how to protect our precious Medicare money. I doubt the US attorneys office would have prosecueted this little facility unless there was proof. Nursing home rehab is nothing more than a license to steal! The Medicare SENIORS- commends these therapist for being courageous! they obviously didn;t do it for the money. my nephew said after taxes ,paying attorneys they might get $10,000. Whi;le if they had stayed they could of made $90,000 .
juanita
4:09 am on Friday, February 22, 2013
Like LaLa says, I think there is some lying going on. As an employee in the rehab department during that time, I have a response. Here is a link to a blog article w/my response. (I had to go this route of creating a one time blog to respond, as what I wrote was too long to place in the Fairfax Patch comments section, the comments only allow 1500 characters) Please consider reading for why the allegations in Ms. Rhodes article are false in several areas. Thank you. https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=328602080884911859#editor/target=post;postID=4381009251507184128
Whitney Rhodes
10:15 am on Friday, February 22, 2013
You should consider posting this here: http://fairfaxcity.patch.com/blog/apply
juanita
11:42 pm on Friday, February 22, 2013
thanks Ms. Rhodes, I figured out my error in the previous link so will just keep this link as is: http://responsetothisarticle.blogspot.com/ But upon your suggestion I have also submitted the comments to the fairfax city patch blog site as well. Thank you!
Whitney Rhodes
12:08 am on Saturday, February 23, 2013
No problem. I just approved your blog entry. You can find it here: http://fairfaxcity.patch.com/blog_posts/response-to-article as well as a link to it on the Fairfax City Page homepage.
You may want to check out the court documents pertaining to this case. They were unsealed earlier this month and available online. You can search "Fairfax Nursing Center" on PACER (http://www.pacer.gov/) to find them. Unfortunately the site requires you to create an account and pay a fee to access the files. It's rather annoying, I had to do the same when I accessed them. They're free if you go to the federal courts and request them.
juanita
6:00 am on Saturday, February 23, 2013
thanks for that info Ms. Rhodes