In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court’s summer decision in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana, et al. v. Talevski has increased the pressures for nursing homes. The highest court ruled that private litigants are now authorised to present civil claims against facilities in order to recover damages for violations of particular provisions of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act (FNHRA).
As per FNHRA, nursing homes that are beneficiaries of Medicaid funding are required to abide by certain standards to guarantee the health, safety and dignity of their residents. Previously, these standards could exclusively be enforced by relevant governmental authorities. However, with the new Supreme Court ruling, private litigants are now allowed to bring about lawsuits against nursing homes for certain violations of FNHRA. This change could potentially stimulate a wave of lawsuits against nursing homes. Besides, this verdict also provides convincing incentives for nursing homes and other facilities under FNHRA’s purview to augment their monitoring and compliance processes.
The focus of the Supreme Court’s decision in Talevski was on two specific entitlements offered to nursing home residents by the FNHRA: 1) the freedom from unnecessary chemical restraints, and 2) the right to be discharged or relocated only under certain preconditions. The plaintiff in Talevski brought about the lawsuit under a federal statute providing private litigants the right to sue certain entities for civil rights violations.
Although the legal document of Supreme Court’s decision in Talevski is limited to these two specific FNHRA provisions, this decision will have larger implications. It opens a broader path that litigants will likely utilise to sue under different provisions of the FNHRA. This decision and its implications will undeniably lead to additional litigation risks for nursing homes and underline the importance of taking proactive measures such as involving legal consultations as early as possible to mitigate risks and promoting internal reporting to detect and rectify issues.
Moving forward, nursing homes will need to strictly adhere to the FNHRA’s provisions and invest more time and resources to ensure compliance, given the elevated litigation risks brought about by this judicial review. This decision is a powerful reminder that nursing homes are, more than ever, under close scrutiny and must comb through their operations to minimize the possibility of FNHRA violations which could lead to lawsuits.
The original information for this article was published on MedCity News.