Families Can Fight Improper Transfer From A Nursing Home

Ricky Bagolie

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Do not let a nursing home threaten to transfer or discharge your loved one. Too often, a facility may respond to resident's difficulties or increasing need for care or repeated questions or complaints from family members by transferring or discharging the resident. The Nursing Home Reform Law of 1987 protects residents from involuntary transfer and discharge. It prohibits nursing homes from transferring or discharging a resident unless it can establish that one of the permissible reasons for transfer/discharge exist. Those reasons are:

the nursing home cannot provide adequate care for the resident; the resident's health has improved to the point that he or she no longer needs nursing home care; safety of individuals in the facility is endangered;the health of others in the facility would otherwise be endangered; the resident has failed, after reasonable and appropriate notice, to pay for care (although the facility cannot evict a resident who is waiting for Medicaid eligibility and should work with other state agencies to obtain payment if the resident's money is being held by a family member or other individual); or the facility ceases to operate.

Do not let the home bully your family into agreeing to a transfer or discharge. The facility must identify and try to meet the resident's individual medical, nursing, and psychosocial needs, by formulating and implementing an individualized care plan designed to meet those needs. Once a resident has been accepted by the nursing home, the nursing home should find ways to provide safe and appropriate care.