Broken Promises From Home Health and Nursing Providers

An unfortunate scenario plays out in Minneapolis and across Minnesota every day:

A medical company signs a contract to provide home health or assisted living services and claims it will provide a high level of care and a specific number of visits every month. Then, the company sends a nurse or a home health aide to the homes of its clients. At the end of these visits, the clients are supposed to sign a form confirming that a health care worker came to help them.

Instead of just having the patient sign one form for the one visit, though, the health care worker makes the patient sign multiple forms, which should only be signed upon the completion of subsequent visits, and then does not show up again that month. The company then submits these forms as “proof” that it provided the care they claimed, and bills Medicare, Medicaid or the state of Minnesota for the services it supposedly rendered.

Improper actions also take place in nursing homes, such as when medical personnel claim they provided a specific number of services. In reality, they often provide fewer services than they claim, and in doing so commit fraud. Nursing home personnel may also claim that a resident requires services that are in reality unnecessary or unwanted. This also leads to the submission of false claims to Medicare or Medicaid.