Patient ‘dumping’ alleged at facility
Lakeview Terrace settles suit accusing it of seeking lucrative COVID-19 patients.
Nursing home accused of taking in more lucrative residents.
A nursing home accused of illegally “dumping” residents onto city streets and into ill-equipped homes in order to take in more lucrative COVID-19 patients will nearly double its nursing staff, allow increased oversight and pay $275,000 in penalties and costs to settle a lawsuit brought by the L.A. city attorney’s office.
City Atty. Mike Feuer on Monday announced the legal agreement with the Lakeview Terrace skilled nursing facility, which he had accused of sustained and intentional misconduct in failing to adequately tend to some patients, while pushing others out of the 99bed home.
The city alleged in its lawsuit that the facility west of downtown had an incentive to discharge long-term residents to make room for COVID-19 patients, who brought in much higher reimbursement payments from Medicare.
“This victory for these patients is all the more important given COVID-19’s devastating impact on nursing home residents in L.A. and across the nation,” Feuer said in announcing the settlement. He predicted that the agreement would result in “dramatic improvements in patient care, new COVID-related protections [and] improved oversight when patients are discharged.”
The lawsuit said Lakeview Terrace had failed to give prescribed medication to chronically ill patients and falsely reported that the medicine had been given. The July action, filed in Superior Court, also charged that family members were not consulted when patients were dumped at other facilities or onto the street.
In one instance, the suit said, an 88-year-old man with dementia was transferred from the nursing home in the Westlake neighborhood to a boarding house in Van Nuys, only to be found a day later wandering the streets, profoundly confused. Another Lakeview Terrace patient who is positive for HIV was released and ended up cowering in a friend’s backyard, hoping he would be safe there from the coronavirus, the suit said.
“Although Lakeview disputes the underlying allegations, the costs associated with litigating against the City are most appropriately put towards resident care,” the facility’s administrator, DJ Weaver, said via email.
Feuer acknowledged that the facility had cooperated with the city attorney’s office throughout the investigation. Weaver’s statement concluded: “Put simply, all Lakeview residents can expect the utmost in care and treatment. Residents have been, and will continue to be, Lakeview’s highest priority.”
Healthcare experts have warned that the money skilled nursing facilities are paid under a plan by the federal government to care for people stricken by the coronavirus would lead to patient-dumping by unscrupulous operators. The reimbursement plan pays more than four times more for COVID-19 patients than homes can charge for longterm residents with relatively mild conditions.
The lawsuit is similar to another filed in 2019 by the city attorney’s office against Lakeview Terrace. That action also accused the home of patient dumping, inadequate care and failure to maintain adequate records.
The new settlement brings back an outside monitor first imposed on Lakeview Terrace following the 2019 suit. This time, the monitor will have broader powers to protect residents, with 24hour access to records and the ability to make unannounced inspections. The overseer will remain in place for up to 18 months, at the discretion of Feuer’s office.
According to county health officials, Lakeview Terrace has reported that a total of 38 staff members and 48 patients have contracted the coronavirus. The facility has recorded three deaths from COVID-19.