MN Nursing Home Evictions and Minnesota Estate Planning

Most of us assume that if our parents run out of money to pay for their nursing home care, theyll simply go on Medicaid.

While that may still happen in many cases, bad things can still happen even to families that have avoided all forms of fraud or wrongdoing. This is why you must keep unexpected problems like this in mind when reviewing your parents estate plan (or creating your own) with your Minnesota estate planning attorney.

A recent New York Times article explores nursing home evictions in depth. If youve ever personally witnessed this type of event, you know how terribly upsetting it can be for all innocent parties involved.

Of course, euphemisms are common in this world. The nursing home industry prefers to call evictions involuntary discharges. As one patient said in the Times article, he became suicidal when he learned that his nursing home wanted to kick him out. The majority of the elderly simply develop overwhelming panic right at that time in their lives when theyre least able to advocate for themselves.

How Common Are Nursing Home Evictions?

Since 2010, complaints about nursing home evictions have steadily grown. In fact, they still hold the top spot in terms of volume;
Complaints and lawsuits across the U. S. point to a spike in evictions –even as observers note [that] available records only give a glimpse of the problem. Naturally, nursing homes always try to avoid stating that they initiated an eviction. Odds are that when they note in a departing patients records why the person left, they just state that the family or the patient herself chose a new facility following the most recent hospitalization. This of course often hides what really took place;
According to data provided by the federal governments Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, complaints about discharges and evictions are up about 57% since 2000.

Exactly How Do Questionable Nursing Homes Pull Off These Evictions?

Eager to avoid lawsuits they know they might lose by simply claiming a current resident needs a different type of care elsewhere, most questionable nursing homes get rid of their own residents when theyre most defenseless while still hospitalized and expecting to return to their familiar care facility. Instead of letting these elderly or otherwise disabled hospital patients return thoughtless nursing homes just refuse to readmit them. This type of unkind behavior is morally unacceptable and often illegal.

What often happens is that right when a family member is about to bring the resident home from the hospital, the nursing home will place a last-minute call to that caregiver, refusing readmission. This practice always causes immense emotional suffering to clear-headed residents. It also forces caregivers (who are often working full-time) to scramble to find an adequate facility to take in their displaced parent or other loved one.

Needless to say, the evicted resident often winds up in a much worse facility especially when the person is poor and on Medicaid. Money talks and when its absent, abusive practices seem to multiply.

What Types of Situations (Apart fromPoverty) Can Lead to These Types of Evictions?

The patients family has been very proactive about obtaining adequate care and has felt forced to formally complain about it repeatedly in the past;
A paperwork mix-up may have occurred and a month or two of rent has gone unpaid. This should never be an excuse, especially if the elder care patient never controls the funds and theres just been an oversight by a government or insurance group;
The patients behavior is posing a serious risk to his/her own health or safety and/or that of others. Since many older people suffer from memory loss or dementia, they often forget where they are and what exact regimented behavior is required. Surely its thoughtless to capitalize on minor behavioral issues in order to throw a poor Medicaid or elder care patient out — in favor of a private pay patient with a lot more money (or a short-stay rehabiliation patient whose insurance payments are likely to be much higher);
The patients health has improved so much that the nursing home believes it can convincingly claim that the person is no longer qualified for nursing home care. Sadly, this ruse is all too common especially when someone can now move about without the benefit of a walker or wheelchair after needing one of them for a long time period;
The nursing home industrys favorite excuse they believe they can no longer meet the persons needs. The Times article states that nursing homes eligible to receive Medicare and Medicaid should nearly always be able to meet just about every nursing home patients needs.

While some private or faith-based nursing homes are quite good far too many for profit ones still exist. In addition, many for profit nursing homes want to keep their staffing costs low to increase their profits. So, some are a bit too eager to evict very sick elder care patients requiring significant employee care on a daily basis.

What Kind of Financial Steps Might You Take to Cope with An Unexpected Eviction?

Since every situation may unfold differently, it would be wise for every caregiver to ask his/her Minnesota estate planning attorney for special advice on how to lawfully set aside private funds to help cover a short-term stay somewhere for a person just evicted from a nursing home.

Perhaps a special trust account should be created to contain emergency funds for this type of event making sure that its set up in a way to avoid disqualifying the nursing home patient for any current or future Medicaid funds or a Minnesota probate. Other possibilities might entail having the caregiver sell the elderly persons home and switch him/her to private pay — depending on the size of the estate and the exhaustion of all other possible remedies.