New Jersey Long-Term Care OmbudsmanNEW! Medicaid Cuts: A Message from Nursing Home Residents
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This report is a bombshell, detailing financial trickery and substandard care at these nursing homes in Deptford and Hammonton. It sickens me that people who are responsible for the care of so many people are so callous about their well-being.
I suspect that the operational and financial issues uncovered in this report are widespread throughout the long-term care system. In other words, I can assure you this in the tip of the iceberg. And this issue needs legislative attention!
New Jersey nursing homes received more than $4 billion in taxpayers’ money — through Medicaid and Medicare — in 2023 alone.
The public deserves to know where every dollar went, and the harsh truth is that we don’t. What we do know is that many nursing homes routinely divert money away from resident care and into the pockets of the owners or the owners’ families.
The OSC Medicaid Fraud Division has proven to be a leader in identifying fraud and clawing back misspent public funds from for-profit nursing homes.
But the state of New Jersey needs to do more. The Department of Health, which inspects nursing homes, and the Department of Human Services, which administers the Medicaid program, need an infusion of resources and personnel so they can proactively monitor conditions within nursing homes in real time and better scrutinize their finances.
This is also true for the Medicaid Fraud Division. They need more resources, not less. This is incredibly labor-intensive work. There is a reason why no state entity has taken up this challenge in the past. It is painstaking, difficult work. It is hard, and nobody wants to do it.
In addition to new resources, we need a new mindset. When nursing homes are routinely understaffed, we shouldn’t just fine them. We should shut down new admissions. Why on earth should we allow a demonstrably understaffed nursing home to take in more people if they can’t care properly for the ones they already have?
We should also demand additional disclosures from individuals or entities seeking to purchase nursing homes.
Do they already have a stake in other New Jersey nursing homes? If so, we should closely evaluate the performance of those nursing homes. The same with out-of-state providers.
Too often, we have allowed unscrupulous owners to set up shop and do business, or continue to do business, in New Jersey. The only entity that is saying no and closing the door is the state Comptroller. And good for him!
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need real financial transparency for nursing homes in New Jersey. Our current system enables nursing homes to pay related parties — separate companies owned by the same people who own the nursing home — for goods and services without fully accounting for how much of that spending actually benefits the residents.
Our research, and the body of work produced by the OSC, suggests that these related party transactions divert funds away from resident care and directly into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires.
The Legislature should pass Senate Bill S1948, which would require nursing homes to provide audited financial statements not just for the individual nursing home but for the entire nursing home chain and any related parties.
Resident advocates have been pushing this type of legislation for years. It is time for New Jersey to get it done.
To conclude, when we talk about millions of dollars being siphoned into owners’ pockets, let’s be clear: every dollar of exorbitant or fraudulent profit-taking results directly in human suffering.
The long-term care system we have created to care for with disabilities or people who are elderly is broken. We need to stop shoveling money at it and implement real reforms. The Comptroller’s Office, as they so often do, is showing us the way.
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