Multi-service center for poor to expand in Howard

A center for helping low-income residents of Howard County will expand this summer, the Howard County Times reported yesterday. The North Laurel-Savage Multi-Service Center, which provides a wide range of human service programs, will nearly double the number of clients served when it relocates in July. Maryland Legal Aid is one of the programs that helped about 1,900 families and individuals at the center last year.  “The idea is ‘one-stop shopping’ to streamline services to reduce the number of contacts and visits to various service providers,” said Denise McCain, Legal Aid’s director of program development and compliance.  “The average client has more than one issue and generally needs a multitude of services.” To read the article, click here.

Legal Aid helps victim of “patient dumping”

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner

Long Term Care Assistance Project staff attorney Anne Haffner successfully helped a Carroll County woman who was the victim of “patient dumping” after her nursing home discharged her to a hospital and then wouldn’t take her back. “The nursing home claimed that the resident was such a danger to other residents that she wasn’t entitled to a notice of involuntary discharge or a hearing,” said Haffner, noting that the client has mental health and physical issues, uses a wheelchair and is in a lot of pain. “Not taking her back was a violation of both state and federal nursing home law.”

Haffner was then able to get the Office of Health Care Quality to take another look at the woman’s case, which then levied a fine against the nursing home for multiple violations. Haffner then prepared an injunction to force the nursing home to take her back. But then the nursing home agreed to settle and the client returned to the nursing home just in time to be able to get a living-at-home waiver, which allowed her to then move into a smaller, more home-like facility. “She’s a difficult person with an anxiety disorder,” Haffner said. “She’s much happier being in an assisted living facility. We’re really happy with the outcome.”

Legal Aid sues Maryland for moving ventilator patients

Legal Aid filed a lawsuit against the state yesterday for moving low-income patients on ventilators in chronic-care hospitals to nursing homes, where they receive less-expert care.  In the complaint, Legal Aid claims the state didn’t follow legal requirements when it changed guidelines for patients’ eligibility for hospital care in order to save money–and, as a result, several patients died after they were moved to nursing homes.

“Their goal was to save money, plain and simple,” Assistant Director of Advocacy Jennifer Goldberg told The Baltimore Sun in an article in today’s paper. “Of course, everyone wants patients to get the best quality care in a setting that is appropriate and that is cost-effective,” she said. “But if it is hurting people, that’s where the problem comes in.”

To read the article, click here.

MS Patient Gets Reprieve from Nursing Home

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner

A nursing home resident with multiple sclerosis and threatened with involuntary discharge because of an outstanding bill will be allowed to stay, Baltimore’s WBAL-TV reported on Friday.  Melanie Conaway’s attorney, Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner, successfully negotiated an agreement with the facility, Future Care Northpoint in Dundalk.  “We were prepared to go into a hearing and lose the hearing and be faced with a difficult decision about where Mrs. Conaway was going to be living,”  Haffner told WBAL investigative reporter Barry Simms.

But under a last-minute settlement, Conaway will remain at the nursing home.  “She said she was just so happy she would be able to stay and get her medical needs met at this nursing home,” Haffner said in the news segment. “The settlement agreement allows Mrs. Conaway to stay while we pursue a judgment against her ex-husband.”

The whole dispute focused on a $300 a month payment–alimony Conaway is supposed to receive from a divorce settlement in Tennessee. The funds are considered income and must be used for her nursing home stay, Simms reported.

Legal Aid Assists Needy Patient Facing Nursing Home Eviction

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner

Long Term Care Assistant Project staff attorney Anne Haffner appeared on Baltimore’s WBAL-TV yesterday evening in a news segment about a client threatened with involuntary discharge from a nursing home. “This is a really tragic case,” Anne said on camera about her client, a 53-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis who could get kicked out over an outstanding $2500 bill. The good news: After talking with WBAL investigative reporter Barry Simms, the nursing home agreed to let the woman stay as Anne tries to get a judgment against the client’s ex-husband, who stopped paying $300 a month alimony (that was turned over to the nursing home).

Top court rejects Medicaid eligibility standard

Maryland’s highest court ruled today that Maryland’s health department used a too-strict standard in determining Medicaid eligibility for at-home health services—a victory for Legal Aid and AARP, which argued the case at the Court of Appeals.

“This is great news and  a victory for elderly and disabled people throughout the state of Maryland,” said Legal Aid senior attorney Mary Aquino, one of the attorneys who argued the case.

The decision vindicates the rights of people with dementia, who are low-income eligible and get health related services at home or in assisted living facilities, said Aquino, who represented 86-year-old Ida Brown, whose application was rejected from the Older Adults Waiver Program in 2005.

The decision could affect as many as 13,000 Marylanders who are either in the program or waiting for approval to apply.

“The court’s ruling is good for people like Mrs. Brown and her daughter, who was her caretaker for years,” said Bruce Vignery, a lawyer at the AARP Foundation Litigation, who also argued the case. “It’s great news for family members of people suffering from Alzheimer’s and older people in general.”

Brown suffers from Alzheimer’s, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, elevated cholesterol levels, hypertension, bilateral cataracts and a benign brain tumor. The state argued Brown did not require constant care from a licensed healthcare professional, its standard for admission to the program.

The Court of Appeals affirmed a decision last November by the Court of Special Appeals, which held that the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s standard was stricter than federal eligibility requirements for the program, which allows people 50 and over to get Medicaid coverage at home or in assisted-living facilities for long-term services that are normally only covered in nursing homes.

“Maryland cannot set a higher bar for eligibility under the Older Adults Waiver Program than is prescribed by the federal government,” Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote in the intermediate appeals court’s reported opinion last year.

Joseph DeMattos, director of AARP’s Maryland office, called the decision “a very encouraging sign. A lot of Marylanders have been suffering under these unfair standards.”

Legal Aid trains nursing home ombudsmen

Maryland Legal Aid’s Long Term Care Legal Assistance Project gave a three-hour presentation October 22 to new state long-term care ombudsmen at a four-day training in Baltimore. The ombudsmen are advocates for nursing home residents across the state.

“We have an informal partnership with them,” explained Harbour Partesotti, supervising attorney of the statewide Legal Aid project and a presenter at the training. “Some cases are better resolved by ombudsmen because they have unique relationships with the facilities. We refer those cases to them. They then refer cases to us when they hit a wall and need a legal remedy. We support each other in carrying out our shared goal of ensuring nursing home residents’ rights throughout the State.”

The training, conducted by Partesotti and LTCAP staff attorney Anne Haffner, focused on residents’ rights (both state and federal), admissions contracts, abuse and neglect reporting requirements and involuntary discharge (“a very important topic with potentially dire consequences for this vulnerable population,” Partesotti noted).

Sometimes it takes a lawyer to get a wheelchair for a nursing home resident

Legal Aid’s Long Term Care Assistance Project chalked up a major victory for a severely disabled nursing home resident with a broken wheelchair. “The client first called us two years ago because his wheelchair was over 11 years old, was falling apart and he couldn’t get parts to repair it because it had been discontinued,” said staff attorney Anne Haffner. “It had caught fire while he was sitting in it due to a product defect–the product had been recalled, but nobody at the nursing home knew. ”

The question: Who would pay for a new power wheelchair? After many months of wrangling, staff attorney Natalie McCeney (now retired) and former law clerk Darlyn McLaughlin were able to obtain partial funding from the nursing home and a significant sum from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (the client had been shot during a car-jacking over 17 years ago, which left him quadriplegic).

“This amount, coupled with a manufacturer’s discount, enabled our client to receive a new chair,” reported Haffner, who took over the case last fall. “There were many bumps along the way. But by late June our client was able to receive his brand new, fully equipped power wheelchair.” The nursing home contributed $5,000 and the CICB contributed $10,000. The price of $15,000 was discounted by the supplier as well (a new wheelchair is usually $20,000).