Retrieved from http://www.phlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/PCH_manual-for-advocates-Feb-20071.pdf. The Allegheny County PCRR has sent letters to hospitals and their discharge planners informing them about known illegally unlicensed personal care homes to which they should not discharge patients; however, according to two key informants, discharges to these homes have continued. Theft of government benefit checks (e.g., SSI, Social Security, food stamps, Medicaid, veteran's checks) was common, with one case in which operators diverted more than $790,000 to themselves. What types of reports of mistreatment do the agencies receive? Because of the potential for a large loss of life from fires in these places, comprehensive emergency management planning and practices are reported to be needed to proactively protect those at risk (Tobia, 2014). However, some SMEs and key informants also noted that many of these individuals with psychiatric conditions are older, having aged in state institutions, and that persons 65 years of age and older who receive SSI payments also often live in unlicensed care homes. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Health and Human Services, the contractor or any other funding organization. The AAA office, APS, Disability Rights Network, and state or regional licensure offices can receive complaints concerning resident care that may lead to the discovery of illegally unlicensed personal care homes. Similarly, APS and ombudsmen staff receive complaints about quality, violations of resident rights, and allegations of abuse. In North Carolina, facilities providing or arranging for housing, food service, and 24-hour scheduled and unscheduled personal care services to two or more unrelated adults must be licensed as an adult care home or a group home. Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. Based on the information gathered, we determined key criteria for site visit location selection, including having good leads/contacts for identifying key informants in the state, and having geographic variation across states. Although these regulatory changes occurred ten years ago, multiple key informants reported that many more licensed personal care homes have continued to close in recent years. Unlicensed care homes provide room, board and some level of services for two or more unrelated individuals, but are not licensed or certified by the state. Helping Hands Group Home, LLC (6) Helping Hands Group Home, LLC 322/324 Walker Avenue; Graham, NC 27253 (336)270-4332 MHL-001-192 27G.5600A Supervised Living MI Adult Home Sweet Home #1 (4) Garnetta Enoch McAdams 914 Dixie Street; Burlington, NC 27217 (336)263-6860 MHL-001-267 27G.5600C The NDRN P&A reportedly has suggested that SSA require representative payees to self-identify if they own a residential care home (licensed or unlicensed). Even with relatively low payment rates, operators can make profits by cutting corners in housing and services and trafficking in the federal benefits they seize from residents. He also noted that they were not currently using the system in this way, and that it is mostly used to note unsafe locations (e.g., places known for drug trafficking and drug use, or for having dangerous dogs). Along with funding to cover relocation of residents, this legislation empowers state and local multidisciplinary teams to collaboratively plan and coordinate efforts to identify, investigate, and pursue any necessary regulatory enforcement or legal action against unlicensed facilities. At risk adult abuse, neglect and exploitation in Georgia: Review and recommendations. Neglected to death, part 1: Once pride of Florida; now scenes of neglect. Medicaid in residential care. This report was prepared under contract #HHSP23320100021WI between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy (DALTCP) and Research Triangle Institute. Illegally Unlicensed Residential Care Homes, 6.3. In Indiana, legally unlicensed residential care homes serving fewer than five residents can provide assistance with at least one ADL, assistance with medications or meal reminders, or two scheduled supportive services, but cannot administer the medications. Concerns remain that agencies do not have the resources to monitor and follow through with the appropriate actions (e.g., finding emergency placements for residents, prosecuting violators, ensuring that the facility remains closed and has not reopened in another location) for the unlicensed facilities. As a result, Pennsylvania enacted a strategy to address the illegally unlicensed care homes, which included providing the Pennsylvania Bureau of Human Services and Licensure (BHSL) the ability to serve warrants and creating the PCRR team mentioned earlier and discussed in the next section. These are important issues since they affect many vulnerable adults who have physical, intellectual, or cognitive disabilities. Interview questions were based on respondent expertise, and were tailored for each respondent. The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) is the principal advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on policy development, and is responsible for major activities in policy coordination, legislation development, strategic planning, policy research, evaluation, and economic analysis. Currently, 46 states provide some type of SSP (SSA, 2015). Although we attempted to conduct interviews with operators of unlicensed care homes on our site visit states, we could not identify or gain access to any. Florida publishes a listing of unlicensed homes but it does not correspond with the media reports of the number of unlicensed care homes identified by state inspectors. Below we present a sample of the varying state definitions of lawfully unlicensed and illegally unlicensed residential care homes. Another key informant suggested that it would be key to involve the LME-MCO because they cover a four county area and must receive calls that are about unlicensed care homes. These challenges include differences in laws and regulations pertaining to care homes across states, and the lack of cooperative arrangements across states to facilitate tracking residents or operators who traverse state borders. What federal and state policies affect the supply and demand of unlicensed care homes? In these cases, licensed operators were reportedly worried that the unlicensed operators would house residents from whom the licensed homes operators could have profited. The web Browser you are currently using is unsupported, and some features of this site may not work as intended. Press Release.Retrieved from http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2012/04/17/DC88926. Entrance of unlicensed group home with door broken, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, in Houston. These increased costs have also impacted the populations that licensed care homes will accept, according to multiple key informants. Additionally, several SMEs and key informants noted that in many cases unlicensed homes are the only option, other than homeless shelters or living on the streets, for some of these residents. One SME, who works on the Representative Payee Project,4 mentioned that this project only investigates a sample of individuals who are representative payees for 15 or more individuals. Education: Statewide or Interagency. We then looked to see if those percentages might be related to the number of number of unlicensed care facilities in those states. However, this likely is not a viable method for detecting the population of illegally unlicensed residential care homes. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely. Miami Herald.Retrieved from http://www.miamiherald.com. In Pennsylvania, facilities providing or arranging for housing, food service, and one or more personal care needs for four or more unrelated adults must be licensed as personal care homes. County and District Attorney referralsdeclined from 29 in 2010 to six in 2014. Though it is outside the time period of our environmental scan, the case study describes how regulatory requirements meant for large assisted living facilities are too stringent and expensive for small residential care homes. Retrieved from http://www.azdhs.gov/als/hcb/index.htm. (2012a). In addition to the aging population, many key informants agreed that the lack of affordable supportive housing options for individuals with a mental health diagnosis is also a concern for Allegheny County and surrounding counties. A local ombudsman in Maryland stated that they had no authority to inspect an unlicensed home and therefore did not have reliable knowledge about whether unlicensed care homes exist, how many individuals are living in such homes or what level of care or assistance those residents needed (Tobia, 2014). (2013). Each of these agencies is able to address different elements of the complex situations that exist within unlicensed care homes, including the needs of residents, as well as issues with the building and any criminal acts of the operators. Ten states (Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Washington) require residential care homes to be licensed if they have at least two beds. Thus, unlicensed care homes close and leave one area of the city, but reopen in another area, contributing to the difficulty of identifying and permanently shutting down these places, while also disrupting the residents' access to day services and other community-based sources of support nearby the original care home location. We utilized the information obtained in the literature review, in addition to our own expertise, that of our consultant, as well as that of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) and the HHS Administration for Community Living (ACL) staff familiar with unlicensed care homes, to develop an initial listing of SMEs to interview. The information focused on specific cases, but not on how many of these places exist in these states. It is important to note that we do not know whether the types of financial exploitation and abuse described by the SMEs and key informants occur in both legally and illegally unlicensed care homes, or how commonplace they are. According to the key informant, these individuals were given one-way bus tickets out of the city under the stipulation that they never return. However, the effectiveness of these strategies in monitoring or otherwise addressing the prevalence of unlicensed care homes is unknown. As one informant in Georgia reported, "the hospital will say 'this is an expensive bed, you need to get [the patient] out.' The agencies do not typically get complaints from residents inside the home, although if the home is bringing in services such as home health or hospice nurses, those outside agency staff could file reports that result in the identification of an illegally unlicensed personal care home. The research team interviewed 12 key informants in Georgia. SMEs and site visit key informants noted that individuals being served in unlicensed care homes are very vulnerable adults. For many such individuals, their only options may be unlicensed facilities or homelessness. Zoning approval is required under the Zoning Enabling Act (2006 PA 110, MCL 325.32016). One of the SMEs shared comments from ombudsmen that the numbers of unlicensed homes in some states are increasing, while in other states, they reported that they had not heard about unlicensed care homes. "Caretaker" Accused of Abusing and Neglecting Mentally Challenged Victims. Some SMEs noted that many licensed facilities are unwilling to admit or retain individuals with severe and persistent mental illness, intellectual disabilities, or challenging behaviors. Furthermore, some key informants noted that some unlicensed homes fail to provide or arrange treatment for residents' conditions in order to avoid bringing the attention of authorities. Several examples of unlicensed personal care homes were described by key informants during the site visit. Like the SME interviews, each key informant interview began with a general question to ascertain what the interviewee knew about unlicensed care homes. Florida can impose fines of up to $1,000 a day, however it was noted that owners often disappear when discovered to avoid being fined). Leslie was arrested on multiple counts of abuse and. However, site visit key informants and SMEs we interviewed were unaware of any such lists of unlicensed homes and could not identify existing methods for tracking them. Key informants included representatives from the state licensure office. Though outside the scope of our focus, some of the searches also produced media reports and grey literature about concerns in licensed care homes; however, reports about unlicensed care homes and the quality of care described therein was sometimes worse than those for licensed care homes. Using the 2012 annual Medicaid LTSS expenditures report produced by Truven, we identified the ten states that spent the highest percentage of their LTSS expenditures on HCBS and the ten that spent the least. Multiple key informants also described another illegally unlicensed personal care home with several tenants, including a 91 year old man who had been tied to a chair with a sheet so he would not fall when the owner had to leave the home. A phone number is provided if someone has a question about the licensure status of a facility. She was getting good care and it was something the mother could afford. Dallas Morning News. Although the residents who were moved out of this hospital may have been relocated to licensed facilities when the hospital closed, the fact that such institutional settings are no longer an available option may have encouraged unlicensed care homes to open. The Michigan Legislature Website is a free service of the Legislative Internet Technology Team in cooperation with the Michigan Legislative Council, the Michigan House of Representatives, and the Michigan Senate. Preventing residents from using the bathrooms after a certain time at night and providing buckets for residents to use rather than toilets. Two interviews were completed with representatives from the Federal Government, seven with representatives from state agencies, three with representatives from policy organizations, one with a representative from a national advocacy group, and four interviewees were researchers knowledgeable about unlicensed care homes. If you have a story for Heather Catallo, please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com or call 248-827-4473. Glover-Hogan said going forward, she will do more research, and she said often when she initially places wards, she does not have access to any of their funds yet, which can make placement extremely difficult. As part of this study, we sought to identify potential data sources or listings of unlicensed care homes that may be useful in efforts to understand how widespread unlicensed care homes might be, and whether these settings can be identified for future research purposes, both in the states we visited and in other states. Although this regulation reduced the number of legally unlicensed care homes and reduced their capacity to three or fewer residents, many key informants in Pennsylvania noted that this had the unintended consequence of spurring many more illegally unlicensed care homes to open. Many residents in unlicensed care homes receive SSI, and some residents may qualify for waivers to provide long-term care services in HCBS. Some operators remain undetected by moving residents from one facility in one state to another facility in another state. Key informants in all three site visit states provided examples of how this might happen. Although little is known about unlicensed care homes, a variety of signals, including media reports, highlight potential safety and quality concerns. With regards to the safety of unlicensed care homes, the majority of key informants agreed that the lack of clean and safe housing was a primary safety concern. As described by all informants, complaint systems are the most common strategy used for a state or locality to become aware of unlicensed care homes. Health and safety concerns for residents were a major topic of interview discussion. 8"r7GrAg 365o){11c>9c)T:/V;Mi/nf>b-agH3z=r+Bb0a^0
XPX;.GbJ\ ^koLs%t)+#&l. SMEs also discussed the fact that some residents are involuntarily discharged from licensed care homes when they exhaust their funds. This was described as limiting the capacity of the resident to relocate. We targeted site visits in communities that varied according to whether the state: (1) has legally unlicensed care homes; (2) has a list of unlicensed care homes; and (3) ranks among the highest or lowest in HCBS waiver expenditures. Second, the findings highlight the need for federal and state agencies to determine the nature and scope of financial fraud being committed by operators of unlicensed residential care homes. These include tapping into fire/EMS databases to identify addresses of care homes that could be unlicensed, and tracking multiple SSI payments that go to a single representative payee at the same address. The same held true, with one exception (Georgia), for the top ten states with the greatest increase in HCBS spending since 2010: Virginia, Ohio, Maine, Rhode Island, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Delaware. These included: (1) tracking individuals' public benefits; (2) obtaining lists of unlicensed care homes from health care and advocacy organizations that refer individuals to them; (3) accessing information from emergency response personnel; and (4) utilizing owners of licensed facilities as a source to identify illegally unlicensed care homes. Instances or allegations of physical and psychological abuse and neglect of residents were reported by SMEs and key informants and highlighted in the environmental scan. Another interviewee suggested that it is becoming more difficult to recruit individuals to be Dom Care operators because of the competing demands on their time. Findings from the environmental scan highlighted issues of safety, abuse, and exploitation in unlicensed care homes; however, the source material, including media reports, tend to highlight negative and sometimes sensational stories, which may or may not represent the norm in unlicensed care homes. Although we heard about a range of conditions in illegally unlicensed homes, including neglect, abuse, and financial exploitation, it is unclear whether this is the norm or whether the findings are skewed because of the types of key informants we interviewed. Media reports described operators that continued to operate after their licenses expired or were revoked. Clarifying this definition will be critical to understand the prevalence of unlicensed residential care homes, as well as the characteristics of residents in these homes. Fraud reports have been filed with the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development for the misuse of funds to send users from Puerto Rico to unlicensed rehabilitation centers in the United States. By interviewing residents of unlicensed care homes, HFR is trying to understand the pathways that individuals take to end up in these situations. A facility that advertises or represents via verbal communication that it provides personal assistance is required to make personal services available to its residents. Similar to the information summarized in the environmental scan, interviews with key informants revealed that unlicensed care homes make money off of residents in sophisticated and profitable ways. In some states, APS has very limited responsibility and involvement. Each of these factors is discussed in more detail in the sections that follow. 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