Elder Law

Moneymaking Scheme Leaves Nursing Home Patients Crime Victims

By Levin & Perconti

Chicago investigators have discovered that one nursing home employee was using nursing home residents to gain kickbacks and monetary bribes. These investigators, along with The Chicago Tribune, uncovered a web of corruption that found thousands of dollars flowing through doctors, nursing home executives and hospital administrators. This came at the hands of nursing home facility operators who sought to fill their beds with a steady flow of patients.

Taxpayers were paying millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare bills while these employee?s pocketbooks were growing. One of these patients was an Alzheimer?s patient who had inappropriate brain radiation treatments. Another patient was a disorientated elderly woman who was sent to the psychiatric ward after refusing to eat in the nursing home dining room. Federal prosecutors found that one nursing home employee was guilty of accepting more than $500,000 in kickbacks to steer vulnerable patients towards specific nursing homes. They described this action as ?extraordinary.? The nursing home employee is now serving a six-year sentence in prison.

This entire illegal operation revolved around Rock Creek Center which is located in Lemont Illinois. It was named but never charged in the federal probe. The investigation also found that the Chicago hospitals, Methodist and Loretto, were paying the employee. Although the crimes took place in 2002 it took years for the investigators to close the case. This is an extremely egregious form of nursing home abuse. Nursing home residents became victims of many times of nursing home negligence. To read more about this felonious incident, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on April 21, 2010 (boomark / email).