Analysis Finds ‘Serious’ Allegations in Florida Nursing Home Lawsuits

Despite the Florida nursing home industry's contention that a "soaring number of lawsuits" is creating a crisis among the state's nursing homes that necessitates a limit on the amount of damages a patient can collect, a joint review by the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of nearly 1,000 lawsuits finds that the allegations are "serious" enough that "capping damages and [attorney ] fees alone won't solve the complicated financial and quality of care problems that have plagued the nursing home industry for years." Both newspapers this week will feature a four-day series on the problems facing Florida's nursing homes, including the four-month investigation of 924 lawsuits filed in the past five years against nursing homes in eight South and Central Florida counties. Several of these cases contained allegations of "rape, physically abusive staff, poor medical decisions and outright neglect," while "hundreds of the lawsuits accused nursing homes of allowing festering bedsores that led to infections and amputations." Given that a "quick cure won't be easy" for the state's nursing home industry, the two papers look at the following issues and possible remedies:

• Whether the industry "caused many of its own financial problems by accumulating mountains of corporate debt financed by overly aggressive expansion plans" and have "blamed" their problems on lawsuits and high insurance premiums.
• Whether the state Agency for Health Care Administration "has not succeeded in reforming nursing homes that repeatedly fail to meet minimum standards of quality."
• The effect of low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
• The effect of "dangerously low" staffing levels at some nursing homes (Groeller/LaMendola, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 3/3).