The nursing home industry is facing huge cuts in medicare payments due to the health reform act and are adamantly fighting against the cuts.

O.k., I say let them cut Medicare Funding to Nursing Homes & I'll tell you why;

Because if this is happening here it’s happening everywhere folks!

The AHCA ( Agency For Health Care Administration) is the agency responsible for processing Medicare and Medicaid payments; and also for inspecting nursing facilities for compliance with Medicare and Medicaid standards of care in Florida.

The FHCA Florida Health-care Association is a large Association dedicated to quality long term care in Florida.

In a Florida nursing home owned by a past President and present board member of the Florida Health-care Association; residents, I suspect, are receiving substandard care, being denied their right to see a dentist, denied their right to talk on the phone in a private setting, overly medicated, and, among other things, left to lay in their own feces.

In this particular home it is true that a 76 year old man, within weeks , fell from his wheel-chair two times, was left to lay in his own feces and was transferred to the hospital entirely too late. This man was presented to the hospital directly from the nursing home severely dehydrated, lethargic, with Ce-diff, Pneumonia, Hypertension, positive for antibiotic resistant pseudomonas and a stage three bedsore.

To say the least; nearly dead. Sadly, after 40 days of suffering from this horribly substandard care, he did pass away.

His Wife; in this same nursing facility was denied visits to see her husband, denied her right to see a dentist, prescribed 12 medications (seriously over medicated) and was admitted into rehabilitation.

She very obviously did not need rehabilitation.

Medicare pays only for rehabilitation, not long term care. Therefore, this 85 year old lady was admitted into the rehabilitation she didn't truly qualify for (Medicare Fraud).

The Nursing home administrators, though already receiving Medicare payment for both the elderly man and his wife then attempted to exploit money from them through their immediate family members.

How can a board member and past president of the Florida Health-Care Association own and be allowed to operate a facility with substandard care that commits Medicare fraud and attempts to exploit the elderly?

How can the AHCH continue to process our Medicare dollars into payments for such substandard facilities?

I have the answer folks:!

Political Contributions .... Big ones.

The politicians in Washington who are preaching good health care for our elderly and stopping Medicare waste and fraud are the very ones taking political contributions from the owners of these substandard nursing facilities and thus; allowing them to operate and steal from Medicare!

The owner of this particular nursing home ,lets simply say, has positioned himself snugly around over $200,000 in political contributions just this past year. That amounts to nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

He himself, made a 5,000 contribution to the agency of the very board he sits on,

There are many more personal contributions to similar agencies. Too many to list in this one article.

Politicians, State Senators, board members and presidents of health care agencies should be on a watch list as potential Medicare and Medicaid fraud participants!

Millions of dollars in Medicare prescription drug funding is wasted through nursing homes each and every year.

One example, the 85 year old lady taking twelve different medications while in the nursing facility, paid for through a Medicare prescription drug plan. Since leaving the nursing facility her prescriptions have been adjusted properly and she now takes only six.

If you take the hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents in America who are being overly medicated and medicate them properly Medicare will be savings millions of dollars each and every year in prescription drug costs.

If Rehabilitation funding is cut off from these nursing facilities I predict a severe drop in the amount of residents admitted into rehabilitation who do not truly qualify for it. This would amount to substantial savings of Medicare funds.

Drop Medicare Funding To Nursing Homes!

Stop the Fraud,

Stop the Waste and Demand Decent Care For Our Elderly Citizens!

Do not allow Political Contributions to be a back door into stealing and wasting Our Medicare dollars!

Say No To Health Care Reform

Elderly Neglect Is On The Rise