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Beverly Enterprises - Poster Child Of Fraud And Neglect In Nursing Home Industry

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Nowhere in the nursing home industry is the corruption, patient neglect and abuse and Medicare and Medicaid fraud more blatant than within the giant nursing home chain of Beverly Enterprises. Based in Fort Smith, it reportedly operates more than 400 nursing facilities, assisted living centers and hospices in 23 states and the District of Columbia.

The chain was supposedly sold a few months back, but a little digging under the layers of the conglomerate would probably find Beverly in there somewhere.

As far back as October 18, 1986, the New York Times reported a Beverly settlement with the State Department of Health Services, with an agreement to pay more than $600,000 in civil penalties as the result of an investigation of several of the company's California facilities. The agreement stated that no new licenses would be issued to Beverly for a 14-month period.

However, this comment by Beverly CEO, Robert Van Tuyle, at the time is comforting. He told the Times, "the state allegations of deaths related to patient care had not been proved," and that "the incidents were isolated cases."

Jumping forward to February 2001, the US Justice Department's San Francisco office and the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced the largest settlement ever for fraud in a nursing home case.

It said Beverly Enterprises Inc., the parent company of Beverly Healthcare, the nation's largest nursing home chain, has agreed to pay a civil settlement fine of $170 million and to relinquish control of 10 nursing homes in California. Their subsidiary, Beverly-California, will pay a $5 million criminal fine settlement.

Beverly-California pleaded guilty to one criminal count of fraud and 10 counts of making false statements to Medicare.

A point should be made that the settlement included a corporate integrity agreement that provided for a reporting and compliance program to be overseen by the Office of Inspector General. As part of the agreement, Beverly agreed to insure that its nursing homes complied with all federal regulations including the regulations under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA)

These OBRA regulations impose numerous requirements on Beverly in its resident care including requirements regarding the following:
(a) Reporting resident injuries of unknown origin to state authorities;
(b) Resident assessment and care planning;
(c) Food services and nutrition;
(d) Diabetes and wound care;
(e) Infection control;
(f) Abuse and neglect policies and reporting procedures; (g) Staffing;
(h) Appropriate drug therapies;
(I) Appropriate mental health services;
(j) Provision of basic care needs;
(k) Incontinence care;
(l) Resident rights and restraint use;
(m) Activities of daily living care;
(n) Therapy services;
(o) Quality of life, including accommodation of needs and activities; and
(p) Assessment of patient competence to make treatment decisions.

A review of the continuous train of charges against Beverly in the years following the signing of the integrity agreement proves that the document was a complete waste of tax dollar funded clerical resources.

Five months after it was signed, in July 2001, the Associated Press reported that the nation's largest operator of nursing homes will pay $1.2 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit. Nine former workers claimed that black employees were harassed and subjected to discrimination and racial slurs at the Bridgeton Nursing Center in north St. Louis County, which Beverly owned at the time.

About a year after that, on August 1, 2002, in California's Santa Barbara County Superior Court, Deputy District Attorney Tracy Grossman filed a two-count felony criminal complaint against Beverly.

The two felony counts involved former patients, Laura Simmons, a 102-year-old woman who died in July 2000, and William Marthai, an 86-year-old man who died a year later.

In addition to the two criminal complaints, a civil complaint was filed alleging more than two dozen violations of state and federal codes involving patient care.

Although Ms. Simmons's death certificate said she died from congestive heart failure and extremely high blood pressure, the investigation found that at the time of her death, she suffered from malnutrition, anorexia, bed sores, body tremors, open wounds and a maggot infestation of her foot.

Mr. Marthai died after a feeding tube was improperly inserted into his stomach by a vocational nurse and by the time he was finally taken to the hospital, the report stated, his stomach had swelled to the size of someone seven or eight months' pregnant and was as hard as a rock.

Mr. Marthai's death certificate listed peritonitis with septic shock, infection of the abdominal cavity with blood poisoning, and gastrostomy tube dysfunction as the causes of death.

The California Department of Health Services determined that the Beverly staff failed to check whether the feeding tube was inserted and working properly and issued Beverly an AA citation, the harshest penalty a nursing home can get.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Santa Barbara District Attorney Thomas Sneddon announced that the civil and criminal enforcement actions against Beverly and its subsidiaries would result in "court-enforceable improvements in the quality of care for elderly Californians at 60 facilities statewide."

Mr. Lockyer said: "The settlement takes direct aim at the criminally negligent care found at the Beverly La Cumbre nursing home in Santa Barbara that led to the deaths of two frail and elderly residents."

In the criminal enforcement action, Beverly entered a "no contest" plea to the felony elder abuse of Ms. Simmons and Mr. Marthai and agreed to pay the statutory maximum $54,000 in fines and penalties; reimburse investigation costs of $532,927; and allow victims to seek restitution from the court.

In the civil action, Beverly agreed to chain-wide improvements to ensure quality care and paid $2 million in civil penalties. A court-ordered permanent injunction was issued to "cover all sixty California facilities owned or operated by Beverly Enterprises, Inc."

The injunction stemmed from more than 90 citations and deficiencies found in Beverly facilities statewide in the previous three and a half years. Among the citations were patients suffering from major bed sores, dehydration, malnutrition, poor personal hygiene and improper medication.

And here is the great news. Beverly also agreed to notify the Attorney General's Office of any injury, death or accident that may have been caused by inadequate care.

In reading about Beverly's failed inspection, keep in mind that nursing home administrators usually know when surveyors are coming.

In addition, Indianapolis Attorney George Gray says that in many of the cases handled by his firm, former staff members say that the nurses and administrative staff are trained to race into the hallways and into the patients' rooms to provide care whenever the state surveyors are in the building.

"This way it appears that there is plenty of staff to meet the needs of the patients," he explained.

"In one case," he said, "the nursing home had a code to alert all of the staff that the surveyors were in the building. It was announced over the intercom for all of the staff to hear."

"In another case," he noted, "even the bookkeeper would put on a white nurse's smock and would look like she was helping with patient care when the surveyors were in the building."

Some nursing homes will pad their staffing schedules to fool the state surveyors into thinking they have more staff by scheduling nursing staff when they are on vacation, or in one case, he said, with staff who have quit, to look as if the nursing home has plenty of staff.

Following right along on Beverly's path of nursing home abuse and neglect, on December 12, 2003, LTC Daily Analysis Briefs reported on a Honolulu investigation of Beverly's Hawaii operations that led to a $1.2-million settlement against "the state's largest long-term care provider."

Here the state's attorney general investigated Beverly for a "number of questionable practices, including falsification of records, problematic prescription practices and kickbacks involving medication and pharmacy services," LTC said.

According to Irvine California Attorney James Daily, just as in this case, nursing home abuse can include over-sedation, poor medical care, or wrong medication.

"Prescribing drugs unnecessarily is a great example of a profit motive in many forms for all sorts of reasons," he says.

"Let's say a drug makes people lazy, lethargic and "comfortable," he says. "What a great drug that would be for a nursing home - without people complaining, they are calm as Hindu cows - easy to take care of and unlikely to complain."

"Thus they are like an annuity check for the nursing home," he explains, "because the people are less active, you can cut staffing - you don't need so many people planning activities when they are all in their rooms."

"The checks just keep on flowing," he adds.

"The nursing home benefits, the drug companies benefit and the doctors," he said, "the doctors who only have to visit like once a month - they can have 9,000 patients."

Attorney Daily said, "I have a defendant right now who has 9,000 patients."

"I wonder how much time you can spend with someone if you have 9,000 patients?" he pointed out.

In the Hawaii settlement, Beverly was required to pay $619,000 to the state and $250,000 to be shared by two former employees who helped with the investigation and to bring its operations into compliance or pay another $500,000 penalty.

On July 23, 2005, Northwest Arkansas New.com reported that a Saline County Arkansas judge ordered Beverly to post a $20 million bond after the company intentionally delayed releasing discovery documents to plaintiffs in a nursing-home care case.

But that's nothing. The month before, Judge Phillips threatened Beverly executives with jail when he found the company in contempt of court for failing to release e-mails and other electronic data.

The new order filed was based on a status hearing "as a sequel" to the contempt order, Judge Phillips said in the ruling.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of former residents and alleges that Beverly executives maximized profits by failing to provide enough staff to properly care for residents.

The litigation that Rapid City, South Dakota Attorney Mike Abourezk handles involves the cost-cutting incentive programs that nursing home companies often implement, which predictably results in shoddy care of the elderly residents.

"For instance," he says, "companies like Beverly Enterprises typically put an administrator in charge of each home."

That administrator is paid based on a formula. The formula includes a number of factors, but one of the critical factors is always keeping costs as low as possible. If the administrator is successful in doing that, the administrator is paid more in salary.

"With these incentives," Mr Abourezk says, "it goes without saying that the administrator is encouraged to reduce staff and payroll as much as possible, and to pay the remaining staff as little as possible."

When fewer, less well-trained staff members are forced to care for the same number of elderly residents, he says, their ability to do so becomes difficult. However, he notes, that job gets easier if residents sleep a lot and don't ask for much.

"Noisy, demanding residents make it hard for these already struggling staff members," Mr Abourezk said. "Medication helps tremendously."

According to the Northwest article, Beverly was already facing its "first class-action lawsuit after another Arkansas judge grew impatient last month with the company's release of documents and issued a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs."

Bradley County Circuit Judge Robert Bynum Gibson granted the class-action status and the default judgment after he said Beverly had practiced a shell game throughout the discovery process in a lawsuit involving the company's Warren nursing home.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of former residents, also alleges that Beverly executives gained profits by not providing enough staff.

On January 28, 2005, Judge Robert Bynum Gibson ordered Beverly to provide plaintiffs with a list of residents in the Warren nursing home from August 1999 to when the facility closed in September 2003.

Although Beverly provided 171 names, at a March 7, 2005 hearing, plaintiffs' attorneys reported that they found six more names by searching obituary listings and the total number had grown to more than 240.

On October 4, 2005, the Attorney General of Arkansas, Mike Beebe, announced that Beverly had agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle 26 investigations involving 12 of its Arkansas nursing homes.

In this deal, Beverly paid $1 million to the state Medicaid Program and $500,000 to better train nursing home staff at the facilities. But this settlement agreement is really a joke considering we're talking about one of the largest nursing home chains in the country. The settlement required Beverly to establish programs to recognize, treat and prevent pressure sores and other patient-care injuries, to reduce falls, and to prevent narcotics abuse by staff members, according to a press release issued by the attorney general's office.

Does this mean 20 years after its first known arrest in 1986, it still does not know what a bed sore is?

Attorney Philip Thomas is a lawyer practicing civil litigation in Mississippi. He and attorneys John Giddens and Pieter Teeuwissen recently filed two lawsuits against Beverly Enterprises and its related companies in federal court Mississippi.

One is a breach-of-contract class-action on behalf of residents who were not provided adequate care in compliance with federal and state regulations and their contracts with the Beverly facilities. And the second involves severe abuse and neglect where a woman suffered bed sores, scabies (lice) and had a feces-covered bandage rot into her skin because it was not changed.

Mr. Thomas says he believes that understaffing is the root of all evil in nursing homes. "The number one priority of the corporation," he said, "is to increase profits."

"The biggest expense in running a nursing home is labor," he explains, "so the easiest way to lower expenses and increase profits is to cut labor."

Not having enough caregivers, he says, is tragic for the residents. "Nearly everyone living in a nursing home is there because they require assisted living."

"Many have had strokes and have to be fed their meals," Mr. Thomas said. "When there aren't enough caregivers some residents may not be fed until their food is cold and inedible."

"In addition," he said, "food is another expense for the nursing home that is sometimes cut to increase profit."

Mr. Thomas says it is not unusual to see a resident lose 60 pounds or more in just a few months while they are in a bad nursing home. "Some residents are literally starving," he said. "When moved to a better nursing home these people regain their lost weight."

This corporation has no doubt cut a lot of corners to pay the salaries of the company big-wigs. Chairman, CEO, and President, William Floyd's annual salary is $2.23 million, according to court filings. In addition, Mr. Floyd is the individual owning the most shares of company stock with approximately 803,972 shares at a market value of about $9,326,075.20.

David Devereaux is the Chief Operating Officer of Nursing Facilities and Executive Vice President. His annual pay is approximately $854,000 and he is the individual owning the second most shares of BEI stock with approximately 255,204 shares at a value of approximately $2,960,366.40.

Indianapolis Attorney George Gray agrees that it boils down to profits. "Most neglect and abuse that we see in our law practice," he said, "can be traced to the corporate owners and management companies understaffing their nursing homes, in other words, putting their profits over the proper care of the elderly patients who have been entrusted to them."

However, according to Mr. Gray, the top dogs in a company rarely face consequences. "The corporations that run nursing homes are faceless, money-making machines," he said, "and it is hard for prosecutors to prove and trace the criminal culpability of nursing home abuse up the chain of command to the managers and owners."

According to Attorney Thomas, another understaffing concern at Beverly relates to residents who require assistance going to the toilet who become incontinent because there is not enough staff to always assist them. "Obviously," he notes, "it is humiliating to these residents to soil themselves."

One of the lawsuit complaints alleges that understaffing "in Beverly facilities causes the facilities to be dirty, constantly smell of urine and feces, serve as breeding grounds for lice and other problems caused by unsanitary conditions, and to generally deprive residents of a dignified existence."

"I have yet to find a Beverly facility that does not always smell like urine and feces," Mr. Thomas said. "The reason is that there are not enough caregivers to keep the residents clean."

He recently deposed a doctor treating patients in a Beverly facility, he said, who testified that the facility always smelled like a men's urinal at a park, and at 3:00 a.m. there would be many patients screaming. "The doctor (who was retired military) compared the nursing home to Auschwitz," Mr. Thomas said.

Pressure sores are a painful skin condition also referred to as ulcers and bed sores and are most often caused or made worse by individuals having to lie in urine and feces for long periods of time and not being turned over often enough.

As a result of the understaffing at Beverly, the plaintiff in this case was not kept cleaned and turned enough and developed pressure sores so severe that they required hospital treatment. On one occasion, the doctor at the hospital treated the sores, applied bandages, and dated the bandages.

Despite the doctor's orders and multiple requests by the plaintiff's children, the staff did not change the bandages for over a week following the hospitalization, and the bandages had rotted into her body with the date written by the hospital doctor still visible.

Scabies is a contagious skin disorder caused by a very small wingless insect that burrows into the skin and lays one to three eggs daily. It is a form of lice, and infestation can spread by skin to skin contact or by sharing of clothing, towels and bedding and causes intense itching and is painful.

The plaintiff in this case also contracted a severe infestation of scabies that was neglected and not treated or diagnosed for over a month while she endured severe physical pain.

Her condition was worse than it otherwise would have been because her paralysis prevented her from scratching when she itched, and she was permanently scarred from the scabies infestation.

During the last six months of her residency at Beverly, the plaintiff lost more than 60 pounds because the facility was understaffed and did not feed her and also because the facility ran out of food and medical supplies on one occasion.

As hard as it is to believe, this kind of neglect and abuse is actually happening to our elderly citizens in 2006.

On March 15, 2006, Northwest Arkansas News reported that Beverly closed on a deal to sell itself to a subsidiary of Fillmore Capital Partners LLC on March 14, 2006.

Beverly operates 342 nursing homes across the country, including 16 in Arkansas, according to NAN.

Fillmore President Ron Silva apparently has given a lot of thought to solving Beverly's financial woes. To start off on the right foot, NWN reports that he said, "Arkansas needs a specific tort reform for nursing homes to limit the number of lawsuits filed."

According to court documents filed in December 22, 2005, as part of the sale, Mr. Floyd, Mr. Devereaux and other executives and board members will personally receive payments totaling $109 million. Mr. Floyd's severance package will be $40 million.

But on May 16, 2006, in a 10-year-old case, McKnight's Long-Term Care News reported a decision representing a win for organized labor, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Beverly violated federal labor law when it retaliated against employees following a three-day strike in the mid-1990s at some of its Pennsylvania facilities.

The board ordered Beverly to post notice of its violations at all of its nursing homes and to reinstate eight employees with back pay and benefits, and ordered the company to recognize the Service Employees International Union at two of its Pennsylvania facilities.
Citing previous rulings against the company, the NLRB said Beverly's actions indicate it "continues to have a proclivity to violate the act and that its widespread misconduct demonstrates a general disregard for its employees' Section 7 rights."

In a previous decision in 2001, the NLRB found the company committed numerous unfair labor practices during contract talks with SEIU locals that resulted in a three-day strike at 15 of the 20 homes operated by two subsidiaries in Pennsylvania.

Whatever happened to the corporate integrity agreement? This next case involving a resident's death took place on March 2, 2002.

On May 4, 2006, the Lexington Herald Ledger reported that a jury awarded $20 million to the estate of Loren Richards, 84, who died on March 2, 2002, at Beverly Health and Rehabilitation of Frankfort.

Mr. Richards' daughter sued the home, claiming that nurses had ignored her father's repeated calls for help with abdominal pain. With an impacted bowel," the Ledger said, "he later died of a heart attack."

The attorney for the estate told the jury the 100-bed facility was severely understaffed due to a companywide effort to cut expenses and raise the stock price.

"They are building profitability on the backs of people like Loren Richards," he said.

But a May 26, 2006 article by Northwest Arkansas News beats all. Beverly has hatched a scheme that will send injured nursing home residents on a wild goose chase.

NAN reported that nursing homes owned by Golden Gate National Senior Care Holdings LLC, formerly Beverly, have been reorganized as separate foreign limited liability companies, including 13 facilities in Arkansas.

"As part of the corporate restructuring, the nursing homes have been split up into separate companies," Golden Gate spokesman Blair Jackson said. "The LLC process is completed."

"The move limits the liability of the parent company," NAN noted.

And Beverly is not completely out of the picture. "While Golden Gate is still based in Fort Smith," NAN said, "the headquarters of Beverly Enterprises, which now controls only leased facilities, moved to Folsom, Calif."

"The 80 nursing homes we lease will retain the name Beverly Healthcare, and the other nursing homes are operating under the new name of Golden Gate National Senior Care," Jackson said.

It would no doubt take top-notch attorney to figure out this next part of the scheme.
"As part of that process," Jackson told NAN, "a new separate company was created to own the real estate, Geary Property Holdings."

"That company now owns the buildings and the land of those 262 [facilities]," he said, "and Golden Gate National Senior Care is the operating company that runs the nursing homes."

Bottom line: with this maze in place, how many layers will plaintiffs have to weave through to hold the company accountable and reach Beverly's billions?

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READER COMMENTS

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I worked for Beverly Enterprise back in 2001. I had a 401K with them through Transamerica. I left and forgot about the 401K. Through a. new job, I found out that my 401K was active until 2006 when they withdrew from Transamerica. Does anyone know where they are now or what Retirement plan they are with. I would like to find my account. I worked in Fresno. but I don't think that facility is there any longer.

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Looking for information on a couple of former Beverly facilities named Lincoln Nursing Center, later called Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Center of Jefferson City, MO, and the other was called Southgate Nursing Center in Jefferson City,MO. Both have since been sold, Southgate was sold first back in 1991 when they were downsizing, and getting rid of troubled facilities, and Lincoln was sold when Beverly sold out to Golden, and then they sold all of their facilities in the state of Missouri. Any information about these 2 would be greatly appreciated.

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I was certified at Beverly manor skilled Nursing facility in Escondido Ca, San Diego. We earned while we learned, class two hours then they put us on the floor. 189- 1993. I had the front hall next to Administration, they kept me there and very rarely switched me, if so they put me right back. I had some of the wealthiest patients, so to speak. I had 14 patients on my 3-11pm shift. I was ready to quit due to being given, extra patients on an adjoining hall when under staffed, I would be given 18-22 patients. we had no hoyer lifts. They asked me to stay on a couple of weeks until they could replace me, I agreed. One night as I was getting ready to chart and go home at 11.00pm, a med delivery man came in to the first station where I worked, the front entrance to the building. He had the meds for my charge nurse, he had blood on his face and small cuts, he was in distress and shock, he was Asian, and kept saying can I use your phone? he had been shot at with a gun, getting off the freeway to deliver meds to us. he told me the story I said when did it happen he said 10-15 minutes ago. He asked to use the phone, my charge nurse was not responsive to him, she just left to get our nursing supervisor, down the hall. When she left I picked up the phone and dialed 911, the fire dept came. I started to chart so I could go home, I had worked all day to night. The charge nurse that was to relieve mine, came up to the desk and menacingly said" your going to answer to Administration tomorrow, she said it twice, I did not respond, I just kept charting, finished and went home. I had already given my notice and so I went the next morning to Administration and resigned. The med van was still in the lot withits driver window shot out! To this day I do not know if American medical Supply filed a law suit against Beverly manor or not. If they did not I guess I saved them from being sued, by calling 911. The incident cost me a lot, I had a hard time being hired in Escondido as word got out amongst the facility community. I did get hired, but their were even worse conditions, I left the field. I was threatened by that charge nurse. It was 1993. I am 62 now, and suffer from anxiety due to my past experience with Beverly manor and the incidents that I witnessed there. Many more. True story.

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I worked for two Beverly facilities between 1994 and 2003 when the building was taken over by that sorry company called Avalon. I enjoyed working for Beverly, the director operations was an excellent leader. The company, at least in California was very organized and the buildings always took care of there employees or associates as they called us. They always did special things for the staff. Happy staff happy residents. We worked as a team and everyone got along. The residents were top priority. I never saw any abuse or neglect EVER!! Avalon came along and the places went to hell in a hand basket. I wouldn't put a stray dog in one of those places now. The attitude of the employees is wretched they are all a rude, miserable bunch. I left because I couldn't stand the attitude of all of them. They do just enough to get by rather than behaving like a family.

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I worked for Beverly Enterprises at Gulf Coast Convalescent Center, in Panama City, Florida from 1983 to 1988. This was my first social worker job. It was a wonderful experience in my opinion. My first state inspection was not so great since I did not fully understand my duties. But I was assigned a consultant, and after that my duties were very clear. I did not witness any staff or patient abuse. I can say some staff and patients may have been treated better than others but no abuse. I loved the work, and finally left to broaden my knowledge and skills in social work. What it witnessed was a caring concerned staff. The building was very clean and well maintained. I actually had never been to a Nursing home like this one. Patients were given activities they liked, happy Hour, shopping trips. On site beauty and barber shops, valentine dinners. Not everything was perfect, but for a nursing facility it was has close to home as you could get. My overall experience was positive.

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Golden Living , the company who bought out Beverly Enterprises has recently sold out. Anyone know why they sold? They had the company for less than 15 years. I always figured that in some way, Beverly was still in the hierarchy of Golden Living in some way. After the acquisition, Golden Living went on this remodeling spree, and updated all of the facilities, but I guessed that it was all for show. What good would all of that remodeling do except to make the facilities look good, and help hide the problems that so often plagued each facility. From my experiences of working for Beverly and other nursing home chains, I know that at one point in time or another, every facility is going to have issues. Basically any facility that hears the name of Beverly Enterprises is in for a bad time. Beverly had 2 facilities in my town at one point. They were Southgate Nursing Center, and Lincoln Nursing Center. Southgate was the worst one of the two, and it ended up being one of the facilities they sold in their downsizing. Lincoln is the one that I worked at. I worked there just as they were changing all of the facility names to Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Center of whichever town it was in. Their sign said that it was "Your Pathway Home". I said they should have changed it to read "Your Highway To Heaven" because of the mortality rate of the place. I can honestly say that they had some really good nurses and aides there, but those few could not carry the load of the dead weight employees. It was an 87 bed facility, and they usually only ran with one aide per hall, so I knew that not everyone was receiving proper care. In the kitchen, we never had enough food, or the correct items for the menus to be followed properly, we did not even have adequate diet cards, and had to go by a list where we had to write the resident's names on a slip of paper so we could feed them. The whole experience overall was nothing but a night mare, one I will never repeat. The new company that took over from Golden is just as bad too.

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I worked at Beverly Manor owned by Beverly Enterprises from years 1991 until 1998 in Decatur Georgia and was familiar with the surrounding facilities owned by Beverly as well. I believe that during that time our facility was one of the best. Everyone worked hard to provide the best care they could. Of course there is always going to be problems anywhere but they got corrected. I will say if you have a good administrator and Director of Nursing patients will be looked after better because they stay on top of things making sure that the residents are getting the care they need unlike now where they do nothing except sit behind a desk. I hire less than desirable nurses who could care less about the elderly. It is a serious problem getting worse by the day. There is no one looking after the best interests of our elderly. WE will all be old one day it could be you stuck in a understaffed, uncaring facility with no one to come to your defense. Call a Lawyer they say,. Give me a break. Suing the Nursing Homes are not the answer. When the your family can no longer care for you WHERE ARE GOING ? Better staff, Better nurses, spend the money that's wasted. By the way some of the worst of the worst are in basement hospitals that have been turned into a Nursing Care Unit. Deplorable. It's above Gainesville Georgia in Cleveland. The hospital looks nice , but take a trip down stairs. So sad.. The future for the elderly including for myself is so bleak my worst fear is having to rely on this type of care. Very scary folks.

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My father was thrown into a Maryland Golden Living Center rehab for the year 2015. Although, the GLC collected his medicare benefits (around $90,000) they then hit him with an unitemised list of bills for about $20,000. The corrupt county court approved garnishments of my father's social security income until that was stopped due too unlawful seizure rules. Now they've approved a writ of execution on my father's house for which there is no practical defense. This vile corporation and it's legal apparatus needs to be stomped out of existence.

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I was sent to a Golden Living facility in Maryland after a two week stay at University 0f Maryland (Baltimore) I arrived at Golden Living on February 20, 2012. I have dates and witnesses to prove the following. Wrong medicine on two occasions. No medicine on several occasioins. On one occasion waited almost two hours to answer my call light. Complaints to me from several employees because I was unable to do anything for myself. Was dropped and fell on one occasion, they would not file a report. Was made to use a wheelchair for a person half my size. I still have pain and a massive scar on my back from an eight inch blister caused by wheelchair. On April 16, 2012 after my insurance ran out they gave me less than one hour notice to vacate. I was unable to walk. They discharged me on Hospice with no clear reason or doctor approval. This caused insurance problems over many weeks. They set us up with the incorrect home care company not covered by our insurace. This cost us several hundred dollars until it was corrected.

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Can anyone share negligence, wrongful death, or improper/short staffing information regarding Golden Living St. Matthews in Louisville, KY?

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I was employed at a former Beverly Facility in the midwest. When I started there, it was 5 months after Beverly pulled out of this home. This facility was plagued with problems from the day it opened. This building was a facility that Beverly had leased from the company who built it. To sum things up, the company who took the facility over from Beverly basically had to replace almost everything. When they took over, what they inheirited was a facility so badly neglected it could have easily been condemned, and residents that were so badly neglected some were near death. Beverly had another facility across town, and when they had to send residents to other facilities, they just transferred them across town. I actually went into this facility when I was a teenager, and remember being horrified at the conditions there. The place stunk so bad it literally choked the breath out of me, and I nearly threw up. I also worked at the Beverly Health & Rehabiliation Center across town many years later, and it was not much better. I was a cook there and it seemed to me that I never had the food that was on the menu, and I was constantly changing the menus. It was so bad, our administrator actually walked out during the state inspection. We never had enough help in the kitchen. We were limited to a cook and a dishwasher to cover everything. It was very stressful trying to get everything completed on time. Before the administrator walked out, he would actually come down and help pass trays. I walked out on them twice. After the first time I came back, but I had enough and refused to come back after the second time. We ended up with one of the QA nurses assuming the administrator's job, and she tried to talk me into coming back, but I was done with them. I heard nothing but horror stories about both the former Beverly facility, and the other one they still had, and even though they somewhat made an effort, I was not impressed, and if I was still able to work, I would rather go to McDonald's, or some other fast food joint before I would ever work for Beverly, or Golden Living again.

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I am seeking information on the Rose Vista nursing Center in Vancouver Washington. If anyone has information about a resident who passed away in 1998 please contact me. My father was Warren R. Stanley thank you anyone.

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I worked for the company from1996 til 2015 I have seen it all from physical abuse , verbal abuse Embezzlement Ghost employees ,False reporting, covering up, if you can name it I seen it and the management are well aware of it so are the rest of the staff. And nobody makes report To the law enforcement because they all want to keep there job ...

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Beverly Enterprises provided me and my then wife with permanent labor certificate and barcode number. They provided us with greencard application and barcode number.
My son was born in Georgia during the time of Atlanta Olympics. I had wrong date of birth at that time.My son is 18 and at 21 he can provide me with a I-130 for immigration
All these relevant data and certification is sent to Department of Justice before 20 January 2015 before a Senator from Georgia retired as employment category is over till 18 and he is trying to pay taxes and start living in United states.

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I worked for Beverly enterprises during the late 1990's. During this period I was aware of several situations in facilities. In instance a man was posied to a chair in front of the nurses station. During the night shift he slipped down in the chair and strangled to death in front of the nurses station and not one nurse noticed. He was found dead in the morning by a resident's family member. Most of the patients at the times died of dehydration. There was a lot of Medicare fraud going on. In fact they paid the federal government 250 million dollars to stop investigating. That is what I was told on a national phone call. Some people were very caring, senior level corporate people were greedy, heartless and mean. It was not a good experience.

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I worked as a nurse at a Beverly facility for 13 years. For 12 years it was a great experience because I had a great director of nurses and a great administrator. They left in the year 2000 because of a complaint registered by a patient's family member. The complaint was of a sexual nature and was absolutely ludicrous. This family member did contact state officials in Pennsylvania. When state surveyors came out they were actually abusive to us, The nursing staff. This was what ended up in the termination of the administrator and the hasty resignation of the director of nurses. prior to this event we usually had enough staff and if we didn't overtime was paid. When corporate officers from Beverly came in to "fix things" as they said it was a whole new ballgame. We were not staffed well enough. I had a patient leave the facility because there was only four of us to watch 50 patients during breakfast Half of them needed to be fed and half who were extremely mobile. I was reprimanded for this. When I explained to the acting administrator that I did not have enough staff she told me I was negligent and that I could not forfeit the good of one for the good of many. When I told the new director of nurses, who was completely unqualified for the job and this acting administrator I was going to call the state surveyors myself I was suspended and threatened with the loss of my job. This is illegal in the state of Pennsylvania, I am required to report such things. I had a great experience at Beverly for 12 years and then the worst experience of my nursing career in one year. As you can tell I resigned from my job and have never looked back. This company needs to be kept away from the care of people who need to be in nursing settings.

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I worked for Beverly as a therapist and rehab manager for 5 years in the 90s. Never did I witness any patient or employee abuse. It was an excellent home with a caring administrator. In Georgia, we are not notified when a state inspection would take place, and this facility was still deficiency free for 3 of the 5 years I was there. This was the only Beverly home in which I have worked, but it was a very positive experience.

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I was hired back in the 90's as a Staff Development Coordinator, hired and trained CNA's. When times were busy such as when call offs were not covered, I would go out on the floor to help feed, bath and do tasks as needed. It was then when I realized the people I worked for were a bunch of non-caring individuals. I was reprimanded for helping with direct patient care since that was not what I was hired for. Also had a 83 yr old woman go into cardiac arrest and the family wanted her resuscitated (they were present) and I could not find a declaration for DO NOT RESUSCITATED on chart so we started CPR and call 911. The LPN that was the patients nurse was fired that day for doing CPR and calling 911 even though I was the RN who directed here to do so. It was 2 days later that I resigned and never looked back. Seen a lot of things that were not okay while I was there for the 6 months that I worked there.

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B. Anonymous. . .Yes, unfortunately, you are correct. The abuse goes on. I'm not at a facility, so I don't see the patient abuse. I see the employee abuse. You're right. Not everyone is bad. There are some, however, that think they are above the law and politics are a big problem at the administration office. There is no respect for employees. It's been said, "anyone can fill your chair". People with vast experience are looked over and criticized, while people with no experience, but kisses a lot of tail get all the higher paying jobs. Employee abuse is accepted, unfortunately, because Beverly/GGNSC/Golden Living continues to get away with it. Why do we let them? It's got to stop.
B D'Antonio. . .They believe the liars because they ARE liars.

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I worked at Beverly in the 2000's and when I was laid off (one of many) I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to receive severance. It was legal extortion plain and simple. They spent years downsizing and cutting nursing homes that were non-producing. They were very proud of the fact when they reorganized into LLC's. I worked at their corporate and while I was very glad to leave it wasn't the "company" that was bad, although it's always easier to blame the business. The problem was with certain individuals. Beverly had something like 80,000 employees.. not all were bad. Your article is interesting and I recognize several of the cases you mention although not all the facts are accurate (or at least not fully disclosed) so it paints the picture you want to portray of the evil empire. Poor care in some locations. Yes. Everywhere and in every home? No. Ineptitude, greed, poor training, lack of respect for patients and employees. Yes, in some places. Was there some demonizing of the company and were there politics being played at the state level that had nothing to do with improving patient care? Yes. Will it all continue? Yes. Unfortunately.

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Golden Living is a terrible employer. They fired a person I know that worked at one of their facilities for over 20 years because another employee ran to the executive director and told him lies and they believed her. Never questioned the one that it was about. So basically, anyone can get another fired with lies and they won't even question it. This person also tried the same by telling family members their loved one was being neglected so the employee would be fired, even though it wasn't true. But they believe the liars. Bad Bad company.

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