Can Seniors Use the Office of Older Americans to Protect Themselves from Fraud if They Choose any Form of Assisted Living?

By Lillian L. Hyatt, MSW, a Resident of a CCRC and AARP Policy Specialist on CCRCs

Is community care licensing doing what the 1985 law intended
or is a new model of care for the elderly urgently needed? One size does not fit all. The current model is a failure, according to a recently released study produced by California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR).

The study findings reveal that residential care in CCRCs and assisted living facilities in California is “unsafe, unregulated and unaccountable.”

My own personal experiences with two licensing program analysts (LPA) were shocking and disappointing. One of them was already pledged to taking a job after retirement with a provider of care for the elderly at a handsome salary. The other LPA had been swept into the Department of Social Services (DSS) Licensing Division when the agency that employed this person had been closed. That LPA did not know I was entitled to see all that had been written about me and told me the material was confidential and I was not allowed to see it. I then contacted the retiring deputy director of the agency and threatened legal action. The entire folder was mailed to me by the next day.

All social workers advising elderly clients should give them the information about a federal agency that may prove helpful if the facility where they reside is not fulfilling its obligations to their residents. Contact:

Hubert (Skip) Humphrey, Director
Office of Older Americans
1700 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20552

This agency protects consumers from fraud. When various California state agencies — that supposedly protect the elderly — responded to my formal complaints sluggishly or not at all, I contacted the agency mentioned above.

My personal experience has been that the DSS and the Department of Public Health — the agencies supposedly protecting the elderly — responded to my formal complaints either sluggishly or not at all.

Over the past 10 years I have devoted several columns to employees of the Department of Social Services with a marked bias to providers. These public servants wished to go to work for providers upon their retirement from public service. What hope is there for the elderly to obtain justice under such conditions?

Recently (January 21, 2014) the California Assembly Committee called the Department of Public Health to task for its long-standing failure to conduct timely and meaningful investigations of nursing home complaints. I waited almost a year and three months before I was able to force the DPH to issue a federal deficiency to the SNF in my facility after my dear friend and copy editor’s death in the hospital. His death was due to the negligent behavior of the SNF staff. I devoted two columns to this disgraceful, avoidable occurrence.

Social workers should become aware of and study the health and safety code statutes (California Health and Safety Code Section 1418.91) on what constitutes neglect. They will need to study Health and Safety Code Section 1424 as well.

In my opinion, the worst fraud being inflicted on seniors is financial. While retaining a religious denominational name and being run by a for-profit management company, a RCFE facility in Northern California was in such bad shape that the seniors living in the facility had no idea that it was on the verge of closing. Those people would lose not only their large entrance fee but their homes (which they were told upon entering and paying for with most of their life savings that this facility would be theirs for the rest of their lives). Sadly, this situation can be prevented.

Professor Hyatt can be seen on You Tube on the USC School of Social Work website at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMrC6o6Rm04.