Noam Levey reports for Kaiser Health News on nursing homes that sue the friends or family of residents to collect debt. And, it appears not to matter whether the friend or family has power of attorney or control of the patient’s assets. What usually matters is that a friend or family member signed the nursing home admissions form for the patient.
Searching through Rochester, New York court records, Levey found 238 instances in which 24 nursing homes sued patients, relatives or neighbors in order to try to collect on a patient’s debt, in a three-year period. More than 70 of those cases were targeted at someone other than the patient or the spouse, who often did not have power of attorney over the patient. In one case, the sister of a nursing home resident was sued for $8,000 by the nursing home, even though she had no control over his health or finances and no legal responsibility for his debts.
Levey found 60 cases in which the local government sued to collect nursing home debt over that same three-year period.
Federal law should protect people from these lawsuits. Nursing homes are not allowed to force patients’ friends and families to guarantee their bills. But, the fine print in the nursing homes’ admission agreements often include something that a relative or friend signs, unwittingly, giving the nursing home debt collection rights.
In many lawsuits, the nursing home has no evidence that the person being sued should be responsible for the bill. But, the nursing homes win many of these cases via default judgments because the person they are suing ignores the suit or does not have the means to hire a lawyer to defend them.
New York is not the only state where this is going on. Levey reports that lawyers in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Illinois and California suggest that it is not uncommon for a nursing home patient’s family or friends to be sued to collect debt in their states.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that around 14 percent of adults with medical debt report being threatened with arrest or a legal action. Five percent report being sued.
Tip: If you help a family member or friend get admitted to a nursing home, do not sign any papers. Make sure that, if anyone signs, it is the patient who signs.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Don’t trust Medicare nursing home star ratings
- New study finds Medicare Advantage plan enrollees end up in lower quality nursing homes than people in traditional Medicare
- Medical debt rising for people who pay through their credit cards
- Nearly 100 million Americans are now struggling to afford healthcare
- Four things to think about when choosing between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans
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