California Armenian Home, Arrests of Nursing Home Employees of a Jewish operated Nursing Home

The laws in California are stiffening up to protect the most vulnerable of our society (our elderly) more funds will be appropriated for home health care in the privacy of a citizen's home instead at the hands of those that are incompetent.

Every Armenian in Central California has been bothered to donate funds to the California Armenian Home but the word is out that this is not an Armenian Facility.  Conversely, countless attempts by the aging Ani Guild and Home Guild to recruit new members has failed, no one under the age of 60 gives a dam about this home.  Yuba has destroyed the reputation with her rude and unprofessional behavior toward members of the Armenian Community which has resulted in the community freezing out donations to this Medicaid nightmare. 

 

There are more Armenians on the board, and in the Guild than there are residents in the home, approximately 20 members and there are only 15 Armenians in the facility.  They cannot raise funds anymore, because Yuba's reputation precedes her, kicking out Armenian physicians, vendors and families that built the home.   Starting with former Sheriff Steve Magarian's unfortunate experience with the home to Yuba's self dealings with her Croatian buddies at L and J Rehab to the tune of $900K per year.  To the non-Armenan administrative staff that Yuba hand picks so no one can tell the community about the flaws in the everyday operation. 

 

To Yuba;  Hopefully soon you will retire to your house in San Diego County, there may be time for the Armenians to re market and fix the home to it's original intent "For Armenians by Armenians" The proof is in the donations that are barely under $500K down 70%, it barely covers your salary and bonus.  However, with the nice kick back you get from J and J Rehab it makes it worthwhile.  The best thing is for the home to be sold as there is no way to bring back the Armenian money and support.  The hey day is over and the new crop of nursing homes that are top notch are on the elite part of Fresno and have wealthy cash payors and MANY wealthy Armenians who don't want to live in that sorry sad place you have created.  

 

NYS AG Announces Arrests Of Nursing Home Employees And Lawsuit Against The Home's Owners Alleging Pattern Of Neglect

"Employee Negligence Caused The Death Of A 72 Year-Old Female Resident And Severe Injuries To Another Resident; Administrator, And Other Employees Attempted Cover Up; While Home’s Owners Diverted $60M In Medicaid Funds To Line Their Pockets."

A.G. Schneiderman Announces Arrests Of Suffolk County Nursing Home Employees And Lawsuit Against The Home's Owners Alleging Pattern Of Neglect
Employee Negligence Caused The Death Of A 72 Year-Old Female Resident And Severe Injuries To Another Resident; Administrator, And Other Employees Attempted Cover Up; While Home’s Owners Diverted $60M In Medicaid Funds To Line Their Pockets
Schneiderman: We Will Not Tolerate The Denial Of Life-Saving Treatment And Persistent Neglect Of Nursing Home Residents, Especially While The Owners Line Their Pockets With Millions Of Dollars Intended For Vital Resident Care

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced the arrests of nine employees of the Medford Multicare Center for Living, Inc. in Medford, New York. Seven of the arrests are in connection with the 2012 death of a 72-year-old resident who was at the facility for what was supposed to be temporary rehabilitation. The corporation operating the home and the facility’s top administrator were also charged with trying to cover up the circumstances surrounding the death. The Attorney General separately filed a civil lawsuit today charging the home’s owners with fraud, based on a long history of criminal conduct by employees of the home, and corporate looting.
“Nursing home residents are among our state’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “Today’s arrests and lawsuit send a message that we will not tolerate anyone being neglected or denied life-saving medical treatment while individuals line their own pockets with tens of millions of dollars that Medicaid intended to provide resident care. We must and will do everything in our power to protect our vulnerable nursing home residents from being preyed upon by those who are entrusted with their care, yet fail to fulfill their duties to provide necessary care.”
The felony complaint charges Kethlie Joseph, 61, of Brentwood, with Criminally Negligent Homicide for the death of a 72-year-old resident who was residing at Medford Multicare Center. Joseph, a licensed professional trained in administering treatment to ventilator-dependent residents, admitted to never reading a doctor’s orders requiring the resident to be connected to a ventilator machine at night. As a result, the resident was not connected to the ventilator when she went to sleep, and she died that night. Joseph not only ignored alarms for more than two hours, but also ignored messages to her pager when the resident stopped breathing. Furthermore, video surveillance captured Joseph walking toward her office and not reappearing until hours later. Only after an unassigned nurse’s aide finally went to check on the resident did she receive medical attention, but by then, she had likely been dead for some time.
Four additional licensed employees of the nursing staff were also charged in connection with the resident’s death. They are:

• Kimberly Lappe, 31, of Medford, a registered nurse who also failed to respond to the visual and audio alarms for almost two hours despite being inches away from the monitors. Despite video evidence to the contrary, Lappe also falsely claimed in notes written a day after the incident that nurses had responded to the alarms and that the resident was in stable condition.
   
• Victoria Caldwell, 50, of Medford, a licensed practical nurse who claimed to investigators that the resident was alive and “looked up at me” when in fact the resident had likely been dead for some time.
   
• Christina Corelli, 37, of East Patchogue, an aide who falsely claimed that the resident’s respiratory alarms were not beeping and that the resident was breathing normally when records show that the alarm system had been activated for the entire time Corelli was in the room with the resident.
   
• Patricia DiGiovanni, 62, of Port Jefferson, an aide who was assigned to sit at the resident’s bedside but did not respond to alarms ringing at the resident’s bedside.

Medford Multicare Center’s licensed administrator, David Fielding, 56, of West Lido Beach, and its director of respiratory therapy, Christine Boylan, 49, of Mastic, were also arrested and charged with concealing computer records documenting the alarms that signified the resident’s distress from the NYS Department of Health (DOH) during the course of its investigation, in an attempt to cover up the incident. An anonymous Medford whistleblower later informed authorities of the circumstances.
In addition to these seven employees charged in connection with the death of the resident and the cover up of the circumstances surrounding it, other employees were arrested today for their roles in separate incidents. Yolanda Monsalvo, 47, of Nesconset and Catherine Reyes, 49, of Ridge, were both charged with Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree and Willful Violation of the Health Laws for neglecting other residents and providing false statements to conceal the neglect. A resident with dementia in Monsalvo’s care sustained a traumatic head injury and a broken arm when Monsalvo left the building instead of monitoring the resident; a resident assigned to Reyes’s care was utterly neglected by Reyes to the point that he was found in deplorable and dangerously unsanitary conditions.
All the criminal charges brought today are merely accusations, and defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
In a civil suit filed separately today against the owners of the Medford Multicare Center, Attorney General Schneiderman detailed an extensive pattern of resident neglect and systematic corporate looting. Since 2008, an additional 17 licensed and certified employees of the Medford facility have been convicted of neglect and the falsification of records in an attempt to cover up abuse and neglect. Six of the 17 convictions arose out of hidden camera investigations conducted by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
The civil complaint details how Medford’s owners lined their pockets with millions in Medicaid funds while turning a blind eye to suffering caused by the persistent neglect of the home’s residents by senior management and staff. Since opening Medford in 2003, the owners systemically looted the facility by paying themselves at least $60 million, representing 22% of the Medicaid funding they received in that time. In the same 10-year period:

• 17 nurses and aides pled guilty to neglect and falsifying records;
   
• the New York State Department of Health cited the nursing home with 130 violations of state regulations designed to ensure adequate care to nursing home residents. In two of those instances, DOH found that the home placed its residents in “immediate jeopardy” of “serious injury, harm, impairment and death;” and
   
• 5,000 incidents and accidents occurred at the facility since 2008, averaging 20 per week; only 60 of the 5,000 were reported to the New York State Department of Health as required by law. 

The Attorney General’s civil suit also describes how, rather than investing in better staffing and improved supervision to remedy the longstanding history of neglect and dangerously inadequate care, the home’s owners slashed salaries and supplies. Meanwhile, they regularly paid themselves nearly as much in salary as they paid to all 400-plus employees combined. The complaint alleges that the owners failed in their obligations to ensure proper care for residents and siphoned millions of Medicaid dollars intended to provide necessary care and improve residents’ quality of life.
The Attorney General would like to thank the New York State Department of Health for referring these matters to the Office and for its assistance in conducting the investigations. The Attorney General would also like to thank the New York State Police for its assistance in processing the arrests of the defendants.
The cases were investigated by Senior Special Investigator Dawn Scandaliato, Senior Special Investigator Regina Hogan and Special Investigator Jessica Toritto, under the supervision of Supervising Special Investigator Greg Muroff and MFCU Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan, and Karen Patterson, RN, Confidential Medical Analyst and Pedro Villegas, Confidential Systems Analyst. Forensic audit work was performed by Milan Shah, Associate Special Auditor, Joanna-Joy Volo, Associate Special Auditor Investigator, and Theresa White, Supervising Auditor, under the supervision of Michael LaCasse, Chief Auditor for Civil Enforcement.
The criminal and civil investigations were conducted by Special Assistant Attorneys General Veronica Bindrim-MacDevitt and Sally G. Blinken, under the supervision of Jane Zwirn-Turkin, Deputy Regional Director of the Hauppauge Regional Office, Thomas O’Hanlon, Chief of Criminal Investigations-Downstate, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul J. Mahoney, Acting Director Amy Held and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice Kelly Donovan.

Schneiderman does not name the nursing home owners in his press release, but Newsday's story on the arrests and lawsuit does:

…But the owners -- Mordechai Klein, Norman Rausman, Martin Rausman, Michael Rausman, Henry Rausman and Mendel Aschkenazi -- have withdrawn more than "$60 million in profit sharing, employee loans, unearned exorbitant salaries and purported charitable contributions to their own family-run private foundations," the suit said.

California Armenian Home, California Nursing homes recieved additional $880 million in funding but continue to cut staff and withhold raises.

California’s nursing homes have received $880 million in additional funding from a 2004 state law designed to help hire more caregivers and boost wages.
But 232 homes did just the opposite. They either cut staff, paid lower wages or let caregiver levels slip below a state-mandated minimum, a California Watch investigation has found.
The homes that made these cuts collected about $236 million through 2008, the last year of available data. That's more than a quarter of the total Medi-Cal funding increase shared by the state’s nursing homes. But the law that made the extra money possible included few safeguards to ensure that patient care improved.
Many nursing homes appeared to use the cash infusion to help bolster their bottom lines, according to a California Watch analysis of state nursing home data. Among the 131 homes that cut staff by 2008, the median profit was 35 percent more than other homes in the analysis.

Graphic by The OC Register

At the same time, the analysis shows, about two dozen homes that made the deepest caregiver cuts had about one-third more deficiencies than other state facilities. State inspectors noted a litany of violations that included neglecting bedsores and giving patients the wrong drugs.
“There was an implicit good faith agreement that things would get better … and that was broken,” said state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee. “It was broken for the people of California and for a very vulnerable population – those that need the greatest care and those that can’t advocate for themselves.”
James Gomez, the chief executive of the state’s nursing home trade organization, said the 2004 law has led to a 6 percent increase in staffing rates for the state’s 1,100 nursing homes and an overall decline in turnover among caregivers – from 54 percent to 47 percent. California’s homes now exceed the national average for meeting the staffing minimum, Gomez added.
“Is it working in every facility every day? No," said Gomez, leader of the California Association of Health Facilities. “But is it working in total? Absolutely.”
Of the homes that cut staffing, 13 owned by Orange County-based Covenant Care stand out. The homes pared caregivers even as they got $15 million in additional funding.
The average profit at those 13 homes reached more than $900,000 in 2008 – three times higher than the remaining 632 homes analyzed by California Watch.
The chain’s chief operating officer testified last year in a deposition that part of the company’s business plan called for housing more medically fragile patients. The strategy opens the door to higher reimbursements, according to critics, who say it can be dangerous to combine lower staffing rates with patients who need more attention.
Patients such as Charles McGrew.
The Texas-born janitor was admitted to the chain’s Long Beach home, Royal Care Center, in early 2006.
McGrew, a diabetic with high blood pressure and a history of infections, began to develop pressure sores on his ankles and tailbone at the home. But little was done to help him, according to court records filed by his family.
Meredith McGrew, 24, said one sore was like a hole in his father’s back. Seeing it pained the younger McGrew, who remembers his father as a meticulously neat man.
“My family took it really hard,” McGrew said. “My father was the one who looked out for a lot of them and raised them, so they were devastated by the care he was getting.”
McGrew’s left leg needed to be amputated due to one sore, the family alleged. He died three years ago at age 70. His family blamed his death on mistreatment. Attorneys for Covenant said the family failed to prove that the facility caused McGrew’s problems. The case was settled and the terms are confidential.
Since his death, the home’s staffing level sank below the state-mandated staffing minimum set in 2000. Royal Care’s total profits, though, reached $540,000 in 2008 alone.
The Covenant Care chain, meanwhile, rewarded top administrators and nursing supervisors with bonuses based, in part, on how much profit each home generated, records show. Around the same time, a family trust associated with the company’s CEO Robert Levin paid $4.76 million to purchase an Irvine estate, complete with a theater and outdoor living room.
Levin would not comment about funding and staffing levels for this story. He asked in January for questions to be sent to him in writing, but he did not respond to the written questions or several follow-up phone calls. When finally reached by a reporter late last month, Levin again declined to comment.
The funding increases for nursing homes were made possible by the 2004 law that helped the state draw more money out of Washington, D.C., gradually boosting government spending from $3 billion in 2004 to nearly $4 billion in 2008.
The infusion of state and federal money has done nothing to slow the pace of violations and complaints.
State regulators documented nearly 1,000 deficiencies for inadequate care in 2008, a 65 percent increase compared to 2005.
Regulators maintain that the state hired more inspectors, which may account for the increase. But that doesn’t explain the 23 percent rise in complaints filed by patients, advocates or their families.
In 2004, before the law was enacted, nursing homes registered 4,499 complaints. In 2008, patients, their loved ones and advocates filed 5,549 complaints.
Despite mounting complaints and citations, state officials in charge of carrying out the new law granted nursing homes a powerful weapon to fight claims of inadequate care: more money.
They allowed homes to bill the state for legal costs spent to fight fines, citations and lawsuits alleging abuse and neglect.
“The policy is outrageous,” said Michael Connors, an advocate with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. “By paying the legal fees of nursing homes that are neglecting and abusing residents, the state is subsidizing their mistreatment. They’re directly undermining the whole purpose of the citation and enforcement system.”
Intended reform marred by lack of oversight
The Nursing Home Quality Care Act of 2004 was designed to fix a glaring problem: Daily Medi-Cal rates paid to nursing homes in California were among the lowest in the nation.
An alliance of labor leaders and nursing home owners came up with a plan that wiped out a flat-fee system and replaced it with one that reimbursed nursing homes based on their costs.
The system allowed nursing homes to boost the amount of matching funds they got from the federal government. The homes first pay a fee to trigger the matching funds and additional revenues.
Not all homes benefited as much as others. Some homes even lost money, especially ones that serve fewer Medi-Cal patients. But most of the state’s homes analyzed by California Watch drew a windfall of new money.
Homes could spend the new money on a variety of services. But reimbursement rates increased if they spent the money on labor. Homes also got additional bonuses meant to boost hiring and wages.
Patient advocacy groups cried foul over the added payment, noting the nursing homes could ultimately spend it any way they wanted. And some advocates bristled over the lack of get-tough measures in the proposal. The California AARP ran full-page newspaper ads that said, “No blank check for bad nursing homes.”
Still, the bill flew through the Legislature. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it, he directed the Department of Health Services to “reward quality care.”
“We are making this investment in nursing facilities to ensure better care, and I intend to hold the industry and caregivers accountable for this critical responsibility,” Schwarzenegger’s 2004 signing statement said.
Despite the governor’s directive, the Schwarzenegger administration failed to follow through.
Instead, California Watch found, state regulators lavished new money on homes where findings of lax care mounted, where administrators failed to pay fines for poor care, and where corporate executives cut staff in California and expanded chains elsewhere.
The governor’s office declined to comment for this story, referring questions instead to agency officials.
Toby Douglas, chief deputy director for health care programs at the Department of Health Care Services, said that most of the state’s nursing homes have invested more heavily in caregivers. His office repeatedly attempted to route questions about nursing home accountability to another state agency that inspects the homes.
While Douglas’ agency sets rates and reimburses nursing homes, a second agency, the Department of Public Health, issues and collects fines for substandard care. Even if one agency cites a home for egregious and repeated violations, the other agency may reward it with more funding.
“Our responsibility is to develop a rate method that tries to meet the goals the governor laid out in his signing message,” Douglas said. “That means we have to set a methodology and hold that methodology accountable. In that area, yes, we believe we’re doing a good job.”
Douglas said the governor’s office has “made it clear that [the funding law] could be improved” by linking nursing home pay to factors such as patient satisfaction, reduction of bed sores or payment of fines for inadequate care. His department is in the “very preliminary” stages of creating such a system, Douglas said.
The effort comes too late, though, according to some advocates. They question whether the state missed a rare opportunity to use the funds to drive systemic improvement.
“Money talks, we know that,” said Molly Davies, director of the nonprofit Wise & Healthy Aging, the Los Angeles elder care ombudsman program. “If you’re going to give extra money, there needs to be an understanding of what the state is going to get in return and what those clients are going to get in return. I don’t think that was made clear.”
The revenue increases to nursing homes were not renewed last year due to opposition from patient advocates, but nursing home executives have been pushing to restore the funding. Alquist, the state senator who heads the health committee, says the law will be scrutinized during a scheduled legislative review this year.
Staffing lags, patients suffer
The Golden State has about 1,100 licensed nursing homes that each year care for an estimated 100,000 people – including the elderly, disabled and those recovering from surgery.

Cindy Yamanaka, The Orange County RegisterPatricia Miller and her three sisters are suing
a home owned by Covenant Care alleging that
the home failed to administer adequate care
to their father.

California Watch reviewed financial and staffing data for the 645 nursing homes, that serve the largest number of low-income Medi-Cal patients who need 24-hour care. The 2004 law was set up to benefit these homes the most.
Of that group, 232 homes either cut staffing or wages or fell below the statewide staffing minimum – even as they received more money from Medi-Cal. The analysis found that 27 other homes fell behind in wages and staffing but saw a reduction in funding.
Since the legislation was enacted, the California Department of Health Care Services gave the 645 homes analyzed by California Watch a total funding increase of nearly 25 percent over five years.
But the lowest-paid workers who perform the vast majority of the patient care in nursing homes did not see that kind of raise. Only 76 homes in the state gave nursing assistants a 25 percent pay increase. Adjusting for inflation, average wages in more than 400 homes went down, the California Watch analysis shows.
In 2008, dozens of homes also operated beneath the decade-old staffing standard – which is set at three hours and 12 minutes of caregiver attention a day for every nursing home patient.
In the homes where staffing lagged, some patients suffered.
Staffing at Cloverdale Healthcare Center in Sonoma County was down 8 percent in 2008 compared to 2004, despite the home’s $1 million increase in state funds. Regulators found problems there in the beginning of 2009, including one patient who had been left wearing a dirty diaper for five hours.
Cloverdale officials did not return calls seeking comment.
Gomez, of the California Association of Health Facilities, said the state should aggressively investigate the homes that operated in 2008 with staffing levels below the state standard.
“I don’t have an issue with them looking at those facilities today,” Gomez said of the 68 homes below the nursing-hour minimum. “That would be the right thing to do.”
The state, however, has not issued staffing-related fines to any of the homes that failed throughout 2008 to reach the minimum staffing level, records show.
Wages rise, but problems persist
Applewood Care Center, a small nursing home in Sacramento, collected an additional $575,000 between 2004 and 2008. But during that same time, Applewood’s ratio of staff to patients dropped 10 percent.
As the money started to flow, Applewood got hit with two serious citations – the first time as a result of lapses in care in the case of Earley Woods.
The 84-year-old grandmother had slipped away into the dark undetected, state regulators concluded. She steered her wheelchair out the backdoor of the nursing home at night, accidentally crashing down a 54-inch flight of concrete stairs in September 2005. Her skull was smashed, her collarbone broken, her wrist was fractured.
About a half-hour passed before Woods was discovered still strapped to her chair which lay atop her. She was taken to the hospital.
Her daughter, Elaine Parham, had just minutes to absorb the shock of seeing her mother, bloody and bruised, before saying her final goodbye.
“This really can’t happen to anyone else,” Parham said in an interview.
Terry Bane, the chief executive of the management company that operates Applewood, said Woods’ death was a “tragic, tragic incident.”
“It … affected the employees in that building in a big way,” Bane said.
Applewood was fined $100,000 after Woods died. The facility pledged to upgrade alarms on doors and improve lighting around the building. It also gave pay increases to nurses, which helped lower the staff turnover rate.
But problems persisted.
In late 2006, one patient was taken to the emergency room for dehydration. Eleven days later, the same 89-year-old woman was sent back to the hospital with “very severe dehydration,” a citation report says.
Several months later, state regulators concluded that the facility did not try hard enough to save a man who died of asphyxiation after food got lodged in his airway.
Regulators cited Applewood $20,000 in the dehydration case and $100,000 for causing the man’s death.
State pays to overturn its own fines
When homes are cited with serious violations, the 2004 state law helps bail them out.
Homes are allowed to bill for administrative costs such as legal fees. That means facilities can charge the state to fight state-issued fines and citations for substandard care.
Advocates say that by doing so, the state undercuts its own efforts to hold homes accountable for lax practices.
“It’s absolutely scandalous that this goes on,” said Tippy Irwin, executive director of Ombudsman Services of San Mateo County. “That’s a gross misuse of state spending.”
State officials also pay legal fees for homes that fight audit findings they oppose. Officials could not identify exactly how much they spent reimbursing nursing homes to fight audit disputes or penalties.
But records show that since the 2004 law passed, nursing homes are challenging twice as many citations. Homes challenged 110 citations in 2005 and more than 220 in 2008, records provided by the Department of Public Health show.
“In this fiscal environment, where the state has no money and all of this is coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket, yours and mine and everyone else’s – this is really unconscionable,” said Alquist, the state senator.

David GrossGary Davis is angry that the nursing home where
his stepfather, Harold Shreifels, died was able
to use state funding to fight a citation for
Schreifels' death.

The arrangement worked in the favor of a small nursing home in San Jose. The owner of Homewood Care Center used state funds to appeal a $100,000 citation issued by state regulators who, in a settlement, agreed to reduce the fine to $5,000.
The citation was issued in response to the events of Oct. 17, 2006. That morning, Harold Schreifels, 67, cried out for help and asked for an ambulance, records show. Staff noted that the diabetic man’s blood sugar was dangerously low.
Yet they ignored their policy to notify a doctor about his condition and dismissed his plea, enforcing a 15-hour fast before a routine surgery.
Schreifels, who enjoyed daily visits from his wife and outings to his grandchildren’s sporting events, never made it. He died an hour before he was to meet his family at the hospital.
“Harold, he had plenty of life in him,” said his stepson, Gary Davis. “If he hadn’t been getting surgery that day he had probably wanted to go see a ball game.”
State regulators cited and fined the home for missing multiple chances to call a doctor or to help Schreifels.
The home’s owner, Jack Easterday, acknowledged in an interview with California Watch that Schreifel’s death might have been avoided if the staff had used an IV to give the man nutrients in the hours before his death.
A mediator discounted the fine $95,000 even though no one disputed that Schreifels’ death could have been prevented.
The state helped pay his legal fees, Easterday said, but he described the state’s contribution as “miniscule.” The state was unable to determine the amount it paid.
Easterday spoke with California Watch at his Oakland office in January, one week before he went to federal prison to serve a 30-month sentence for tax evasion. He was convicted in 2007 of failing to pay the IRS payroll taxes for his eight nursing homes but remained free until he exhausted his appeals, which were ultimately rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Davis, whose family did not file a lawsuit over his stepfather’s death, said he could not believe that the state stood by the reduced fine.
“The government should be … corrected for their mistakes also,” he said. “They’re accountable for their actions, you know?”

http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/nursing-homes-received-millions-while-cutting-staff-wages

California Armenian Home Health Care Fraud

Every politician moans that entitlement spending is out of control, so it ought to be easy at least to stop blatant fraud and abuse. Evidently not, says the Wall Street Journal.
The scene of this crime is Medicaid; it turns out that states have been goosing their financing arrangements to maximize their federal payouts and dump more of their costs onto taxpayers nationwide. The swindle works like this, says the Journal:

• A state overpays state-run health-care providers, such as county hospitals or nursing homes, for Medicaid benefits far in excess of its typical rates.
• Then the federal government reimburses the state for "half" of the inflated bills.
• Once the state bags the extra matching funds, the hospital is required to rebate the extra money it received at the scam's outset.

Cash thus makes a round trip from states to providers and back to the states -- all to dupe Washington. The right word for this is fraud. A corporation caught in this kind of self-dealing -- faking payments to extract billions, then laundering the money -- would be indicted. In fact, a new industry of contingency-fee consultants has sprung up to help states find and exploit the "ambiguities" in Medicaid's regulatory wasteland. All the feds can do is notice loopholes when they get too expensive and close them, whereupon the cycle starts over.
A reform alternative would be for the government to distribute block grants, rather than a set fee for every Medicaid service, says the Journal. That would amputate Washington from state accounting and insulate taxpayers from these shakedowns. States would have an incentive to spend more responsibly, and also craft innovative policies without Beltway micromanagement.
Source: Editorial, "Medicaid Money Laundering," Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2008.
For text:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121115735476802403.html

Remember that this sham of a nursing home exists on 85% from Medicaid or California (MediCAL)
The Millions that go into this facility are staggering and so is the salaries of Yuba and her circle of pals.   Too bad there is no support from the Armenian Community any more.  They have other REAL charities they are donating to.  Besides most don't use the California Armenian Home anymore, they do home health care instead.   Yuba came back in 2007, after there was a "scandal" of missing funds.  Yuba doesn't have what it takes to build the home up as she has no clout or respect from the Armenian community who once was 100% behind the place.
To those of us who had families that built the place and put in time, sweat and hard work it's time to tell the board to take the word "Armenian" off the sign and stop exploiting the word  "Armenian"

Yuba is 67 years old and needs to take a hike or learn some professionalism.  We hear they are interviewing people, Yuba cannot sustain the home forever. 
The word is that they are going through extensive repairs and upgrades then will sell to a corporation to take it off the hands of the aging board.  

We have no interest any more, after we have had to deal with the decline over the last 20 years.  It's not the pride of the Armenian Community, the new generation and immigrants see right through the fact the facility has nothing to do with Armenians.  In name only.  We won't be exploited.
Yuba you don't like the Armenian community, we certainly don't like you.  

Start packing Yuba.

California Armenian Home and the depression and mental illness of Nursing Home Employees

This Harvard University study explores the high strees and mental illness of nursing home employees.  Their low wages of the lower employees (LVNs and CNAs) who actually do all the work while the higher paid RNs and others don't carry near the load of these lower end wage earners.
Thus this explains the high turnover at Nursing Homes and the California Armenian Home.  80% of the employees have been there under 4 years and this is typical with lower wage nursing home employees. 
There are very few of the 100 California Armenian Home employees that have been there over 10 years, there is about 8% of the employees.  Typically, the employees last 1-2 years and move on.  But it is difficult finding people that are steady and show up for their shifts.
Many drink to self-medicate and openly boast about drinking.  Here are a few of the California Armenian Home employees out at a sleezy bar that has cheap shots and openly boasting about getting wasted.  Well at least it beats stealing the medication of the patients and mixing it with the alcohol.  The working environment and company culture of the California Armenian Home is riddled with politics.  Anyone talented enough will leave and find a job at the VA Hospital and make more money plus Federal Benefits. 

Sassanah (CNA)  Tammy (LVN)  Mary-Ann (LVN) and the famous Lori "gun toting psycho" Quinn (LVN)
Out getting wasted is this to mask their mental illiness or are they celebrating having a job?

According to Harvard School of Public Health researcher Cassandra Okechukwu, the prevalence of depression is common among low-wage nursing home workers -- who also experience higher levels of stress than other workers.

"The high burden of work-family stress and depression in this group has important public health implications for the workers and their families as well as for the quality of care delivered to nursing home residents," said Okechukwu.

452 workers, mostly women, were surveyed to investigate the link between depression and stress at home and work. Participants were asked about stressors such as financial hardships, lack of food and whether they worried about work-related issues during non-work hours. Investigators found that these stressors were double the rate in nursing home workers than other professions.

According to the report, nursing home workers are a growing part of the workforce who may face higher rates of household food insufficiency, financial strain, and work-family spillover. Among nursing assistants-the biggest work group in nursing homes, and among the lowest paid-the proportion of women is estimated to be 80% to 90%; most are single mothers and are thus the primary wage earners for their families. Nursing home workers are more likely to be recent immigrants who may not be aware of or eligible for government benefits. A majority of these low-wage earners are also members of racial/ethnic minority groups.

The implications are serious.

Depression leads to absenteeism and turnover among workers, which in turn translates to poorer care for residents in direct care settings. Because improvement in care quality at nursing homes is an important public health priority, reducing workers' depressive symptoms and their associated effects may have positive results for both workers and nursing home residents.

Food insufficiency is a household-level stressor that has been associated with overweight, behavioral problems, and poor mental health in children and adolescents. This has further implications for obesity in this group because several studies have reported a seemingly paradoxical relation between food insufficiency and obesity whereby those who report food insufficiency also report obesity. My guess, people resort to dollar meals at fast food restaurants, which is typically an unhealthy choice.

Financial strain, food insufficiency, and symptoms of depression were common in our multi-ethnic sample of nursing home workers. For primary wage earners, household food insufficiency was associated with tripled odds of depressive symptoms-the leading cause of disability worldwide.

I have often said that the resident experience starts with the employee experience. And an employee cannot just be viewed in the context of how we know them at work. Progressive organizations take the time to really know their employees. And when they do, they uncover the real issues that are affecting the work environment. They then seek to address them at the very least instilling self-esteem in workers that can carry back to the home.

We talk about being culturally sensitive to long-term care residents. It would seem we first need to do that with employees.

http://assistedliving.about.com/b/2012/03/05/depression-common-among-low-wage-nursing-home-staff.htm

 



 

California Armenian Home and Audits = decrease in donations

As the California Armenian Home becomes a governmental money controlled nursing and residential facility.  There is no need for that Armenian money to subsidized this anti-Amenian home.  1- No Armenians working in Administration (God forbid if any educated Armenian was working there Yuba can't handle intelligence   2- No Armenians in the home except for 15 at the moment (that is out of 120 beds)  Armenians are giving their money to causes more near and dear to their culture and pocketbook, instead of to feed the ego and power hungry Lubjica the Croatian Witch. 

Here is an audit that showed there was overbilling of MediCAL payments and California Armenian Home was ordered to pay back $8,867.00 to the State MediCaid program.  While we are on the subject of double billing or double dipping......There was a call to the Armenian Community by the Home Guild to raise money for medcal supplies such as wheel chairs (over $1,200+) and shower chairs (over $300+ ea) first of all these are overinflated prices.  The state wanted to know if that was for electric wheel chairs.  So folks stay with us on this.....the total wish list for medical supplies was over $150,000. 

The problem with this is each individual patient has what is called a "working order" from THEIR physician for these supplies, which in turn is billed to MediCAL, MediCARE or their private pay/insurance.  So is the California Armenian Home DOUBLE DIPPING.  Where exactly does that donated money go intended for medical supplies? 

Armenians are pros at soaking MediCAL and MediCARE. 
Here is just one of the many audits.

http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/dataandstats/reports/Documents/AI_2010/NF/A-E/0205_0510_206100689.pdf

How about more ex disgruntled employees stepping forward and giving some statements.  The State, County and Federal Government would like to hear from more of you. 

California Armenian Home- Audits, Audits and more Audits

While the Californa Armenian Home is struggling through the county, state and federal audits from everything to mold to HIPAA violations and privacy of patients /family members being stalked with cameras by low life staff member.  Playing "victim" will not work, the VICTIMS are the patients not your lying staff.
Continue to not correct the actions and behaviors of your staff - you can expect less and less money from the Armenian community.  Worse than the money, you have lost support.  Most do not want their family members in the California Armenian Home as it is not for Armenians anymore.  It's all bullshit.

Kirk Krikorian's Lincy Foundation snubbed the California Armenian Home and instead donated $5 million to the Children's Hospital of Central California as well as $100,000 to the Armenian Community School. 

The free flowing money from Armenian donations is over.  When this facility decided to put odars in charge, they now have people who don't care about the reputation of the facility but rather only care about protecting their jobs.

California Armenian Home has some GREAT LVNs and CNAs, but the ones that are not professional need to go.  You fired PS who is an Armenian and have no problem getting rid of people for no reason.  You have plenty of just cause reasons to fire LQ, SL, JG and others. 

Since the Croatian Turk (CT) loves money so much, lets see if she can make up the decline in donations with the paltry fund raiser "Old Fashion Armenian Picnic" at $50.00 a head - that is pathetic.  The Board of California Armenian Home is clueless, the only person in control is the enabler of the CT. 
At $50.00 a ticket, September 15th will be the worse attended picnic, they will be lucky to make $5,000 and we all know that Richard Hagobian doesn't play for free. 

$5,000 won't cover 1 patient's fee for 1 month.  What a waste of time and energy.  For what?  To prove you are some sort of Armenian facility when you are not?  

There were plenty of smiles at Children's Hospital Central California Wednesday morning as it received the largest, single gift in its history.

The Lincy Foundation presented a $5 million donation to the hospital.

According to hospital officials, the gift will help provide safe and effective care to patients and their families.

The money will also be used to explore a physicians' fellowship program and increase its research infrastructure.

"This isn't a gift that happens often and it's so exciting and it will provide so much to the children in the Valley," said Gordon L. Alexander, President and CEO of Children's Hospital.

"We are pleased to be able to partner with Children's Hospital as they enhance their position as the leading pediatric healthcare provider in the region and throughout the western United States," said Anthony Mandekic, chairman of the board for The Lincy Foundation.

The Lincy Foundation is an organization founded by businessman and philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian.

http://www.kmph-kfre.com/story/14000980/childrens-hospital-receives-5-million-donation-from-lincy-foundation?clienttype=printable