Some Nursing Homes Illegally Evict Residents Who Can't Afford to Pay
“You’re just a piece of garbage,” one evicted nursing home resident said. “They’ll kick you right out on the curb"
When Jamie Moore arrived home on a Thursday evening in March, she was surprised to find her mother-in-law in her living room. Glenda Moore, 67, had been sitting in her wheelchair for hours. Without anyone to help her to the bathroom, she’d had an accident. She was also having trouble breathing. “It was awful,” Jamie Moore recalled.
Several days earlier, nursing home administrators at Bishop Care Center nursing home, in Bishop, California, had shown Glenda Moore a letter from Medicare, explaining that her rehabilitation coverage was ending, NBC News reports. She was unable to pay the nursing home’s more-than-$7,000 monthly fee, so, thinking she had no other options, she left. (A relative dropped her off at Jamie’s home, where Glenda Moore had lived previously, without telling Jamie.)
Advocates, experts and the federal government say that nursing homes tend to evict low-income, longer-term residents who receive Medicaid, to make room for shorter-term rehabilitation patients who are covered by Medicare. Medicare reimburses nursing homes at a higher rate than Medicaid, so it’s more lucrative for facilities to house Medicare patients who stay for short stints before recovering and moving elsewhere.