Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin recently signed Vermont House Bill 413 into law.  The new law adds a new section to Vermont’s laws on abuse, neglect and exploitation of vulnerable adults residing in long term care facilities.  The new section allows Vermont’s Attorney General the right to pursue a civil action against individuals, nursing homes and other long term care facilities, who, with reckless disregard or with knowledge violate Vermont’s laws abuse, neglect and exploitation of vulnerable adults.   The new law provides that merely having a report filed with the Vermont Attorney General of abuse, neglect, exploitation or suspicion of those acts, is not be sufficient to demonstrate that a person or caregiver acted with reckless disregarded.  Fines start at $5,000 if no bodily injury results and can rise to $50,000 if death occurs.  The new law is effective July 1, 2012.

Vermont’s new law can be found here.
Should you have any questions, please contact:

Todd Selby at 317.977.1440 or tselby@hallrender.com;

Brian Jent at 317.977.1402 or bjent@hallrender.com;

David Bufford at 502.568.9368 or dbufford@hallrender.com; or

Sean Fahey at 317.977.1472 or sfahey@hallrender.com,

or your regular Hall Render attorney.

Recently, a Pennsylvania appeals court found a son liable for his mother’s $92,943 unpaid nursing home bill under Pennsylvania’s filial responsibility law.  (Read more…)

Consumers can now compare results from home health agencies (HHA) patient surveys on the Quality Care Finder website.  These results are designed to create incentives for HHAs to improve quality of care, as well as to give patients additional information as to the type of care they will receive from a particular agency.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also states one of the goals of such public reporting is to enhance accountability by increasing transparency.  (Read more…)