ABC Action News I-Team's Report Sparks Proposed Changes in Florida Guardianship Law

Weeks after 99-year-old Willi Berchau was released from Florida's Guardianship Program, his story is prompting a local lawmaker to reform the state guardianship law.

Florida Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-Pinellas County) is sponsoring new legislation after seeing the I-Team's report featuring Berchau's story.

Surrounded by friends and supporters, Berchau celebrated returning to the retirement community he calls home.

“I almost lost hope," he said. "I figured I would never be back at this place."

The I-Team uncovered that Berchau had been locked away in a dementia unit at an assisted living facility by a professional guardian last summer after being declared incapacitated by the state and losing all his rights.

We interviewed him when he was allowed to go on a rare church outing.

“I can dress myself. I can take a shower. I can walk,” said Berchau at the time, questioning why someone would lock him away.

“Many of us had neighbors who, when they heard Willi's case said ‘no this can't happen here,’” said Jane Barr, a former volunteer ombudsman for the state who became involved in Berchau’s efforts to free himself from court-ordered guardianship.

With the I-Team’s stories, a new lawyer and the help of volunteers who called themselves "Team Willi," Berchau was eventually reevaluated, found competent and released.

One person who paid close attention was Sen. Brandes, who is now sponsoring a law to reform Florida's existing guardianship system.

“Willi's story is what prompted it. We heard the story and it was just so compelling and we knew that we needed to do something,” Brandes said.

Hearings begin next week in Tallahassee on the proposed state law.

Brandes said the bill appears to have strong support from other lawmakers.

“They were shocked that it's 2014 and we don't have this kind of legislation in place,” he said.

Another person paying attention was U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

“That's one example of an outrageous case,” he said.

In Washington, Nelson is sponsoring the Guardian Accountability and Senior Protection Act, which would provide more federal oversight over state guardianship programs.

“The state courts need to follow up when complaints are filed. It's clear that the courts are not being aggressive enough,” Nelson said.

Meanwhile Berchua has vowed to spend the rest of his life telling his story.

“You people were the ones that helped me," Berchau said. "To me, you are a God given gift. That's all I can say."

He hopes his efforts will keep what happened to him from happening to anyone else.

Berchau has agreed to travel to Tallahassee and testify on behalf of the proposed guardianship bill as it makes its way through committees.

Source:
Story Uncovered by I-Team Sparks Proposed Changes in Florida Law

New Jersey Asks for Help to Halt Fraud by Guardians

Citing cases of embezzlement by those entrusted with the affairs of elderly and disabled people, the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court called on Wednesday  for citizen volunteers to help weed out fraud in the state’s legal guardianship program.
      

Court-appointed guardians make virtually all decisions for people who are judged too incapacitated to care for themselves, managing their finances as well as decisions about health, housing and even meals. Some are relatives, while others are friends or lawyers.
      

Chief Justice Stuart J. Rabner said the courts had developed a new database to track all guardianships and make sure that each case is reviewed annually. The volunteers in the new guardianship monitoring program will read the annual reports and flag “inconsistent or incomplete” financial information, and report potential improprieties to judges.
      

The number of people with court-appointed legal guardians in New Jersey is rapidly increasing, Chief Justice Rabner said. Last year 3,900 people were declared incapacitated enough that their financial and health decisions were turned over to guardians. The number will only increase, he said, as rates of autism and Alzheimer’s disease continue to rise, and as the population ages. By 2030, he said, about 20 percent of the state’s population will be 65 years or older, up from about 13 percent now.
      

Many guardians do not file required reports detailing the financial situations and well-being of the people they oversee, or if they do, the reports often go unread, Chief Justice Rabner said. The state does not even have a complete count of how many people are under the care of guardians.
      

Chief Justice Rabner cited several cases in which guardians stole from people whose lives they essentially controlled. In 2004, a lawyer in Ocean County was convicted of stealing $2.6 million from 56 people in his care. In 2008, a minister in the same county was convicted of stealing $200,000 from 19 people. In October 2011, a lawyer was indicted on charges that he stole $800,000 from 60 people in his care in Monmouth and Ocean Counties.
      

Those people were caught, the chief justice said, because those counties aggressively review guardians’ annual reports. Many other counties, he said, do not have the personnel to do so.

He said that the courts were looking for volunteers who knew how to analyze simple financial reports, but that training would be provided by the state’s judiciary branch.
      

The program has begun in three counties, and is expected to be statewide by November. Court officials said only Delaware and Utah had similar statewide monitoring.

Full Article and Source;
New Jersey Asks for Help to Halt Fraud by Guardians

Man Accused of Abusing his Bed-ridden Incapacitated Wife Released With Time Served

A Martinsburg man who was accused of abusing his bed-ridden wife and attempting to kill her last spring pleaded guilty Monday in Berkeley County Circuit Court to one count of attempted abuse of an incapacitated adult.

Robert Lee Doyle III, 50, was released from Eastern Regional Jail Monday after 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge Gray Silver III sentenced him to time served behind bars. He had been incarcerated since July 2013.

Doyle was charged with attempted murder, domestic battery and abuse of an incapacitated adult, but those charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Still, Berkeley County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Saunders asked the court Monday to impose a sentence of not less than one or more than three years in prison.
 

Saunders said Doyle’s wife stressed that she loved her husband in three meetings she had with the victim.
 

“They can love each other all they want, a crime was still committed,” Saunders told the court.

Full Article and Source:
Martinsburg Man Accused of Abusing Incapacitated Wife Released With Time Served

Elder Abuse: One Woman's Story, a National Epidemic

Rosalind “Joy” Walker died without her daughter or grandchildren by her side. The Alzheimer’s patient had been a victim of elder fraud, in which the woman’s attorney, Janet Colton, next-door neighbor Joanne Turner and Betty Miller, a supermarket clerk, had conspired to obtain power of attorney and guardianship of the elderly woman, estranging her from her daughter, Glynnis Walker.

After learning about fraud against the older, more vulnerable segment of the population and the legal system, through her own personal experience, Walker wrote “Stealing Joy: A True Story of Elder Abuse and Fraud” to illuminate the risk and ruin of what she said has become a national epidemic.

“These seemingly everyday people were the ones who targeted my family. During their association with my mother, they abused her – psychologically, emotionally and financially, isolated her from her family, defrauded her, changed her will, stole her identity and mine,” Walker said. “In the end, they arranged for her death.”

In the beginning, Walker said she thought she was doing everything right. She had obtained a power of attorney for her mother, after her father’s death in 2006. Walker had set up direct debits for most of her mother’s bills, and, since her mother was not used to writing checks, had advised that she keep a small amount of cash in the house, for incidentals.

At that time, Walker retained Colton to draw up a will and POA for Rosalind Walker.

“On Oct. 19, 2006, we attended a meeting at Ms. Colton’s office. My mother signed a straightforward will, passing all her property to me, or if I was deceased, to [my daughter] Arabella,” Walker explained. “She also signed a POA, appointing me to act for her. It was an Enduring Power of Attorney, which meant that even if she became mentally incapacitated, the document was still in force and I could still act for her. This, as it turned out, was significant.”

Her mother entered the hospital and was declared cognitively impaired in 2010, after which Colton, Turner and Miller began working to turn Rosalind Walker against her daughter. Since Glynnis Walker lived in Chicago, Ill. and her mother lived on Victoria Island in British Columbia, about 15 hours away, the trio worked to obtain guardianship and POA for the elderly woman, which they were ultimately successful in doing.

“My mother executed three wills in her lifetime,” Walker wrote. “One in October 2006, before she got Alzheimer’s, and two in September 2010, after she had been declared cognitively impaired – a multitude of times. The first of these wills was executed in Judy Colton’s office, following all legal requirements. The other two were written in Joanne Turner’s house, the first in Turner’s own handwriting. The first of the September wills was written on ... blue flowered kitchen notepaper. The September 15th will was typed. My mother never learned how to type.”

But the fraud didn’t stop there. Walker received a letter on Sept. 28 that her mother’s bank account had been closed, as per her instructions. “I had been POA on mum’s accounts since 2007, which was why the letter came to me,” she explained. “But, I did not, would not have closed that bank account, because I knew that that is the account where her British pension went. Once it was closed, the Pension Service had nowhere to send the money to and so they stopped sending it, as I found out many months later. Colton would not have known this little detail.” That led Walker to believe that Colton had been responsible for closing the account and eventually bankrupting the elder, by writing checks to Miller.

“By the end of January, 2011, I knew for sure what the women were up to, thanks to my phone calls. I also knew that they had to be stopped,” Walker wrote. “I wrote a long letter to the Victoria police department, detailing everything that had happened, instead of just calling. Somehow, it landed on the desk of Detective Rick Anthony, one of the two detectives who handle the overwhelming number of cases of elder fraud in Victoria.”

Full Article and Source:
Elder Fraud:  One Woman's Story, a National Epidemic

A Breach of Trust: Humana Used Obamacare as Club Against Policyholders

A federal class action claims Humana jacked up its health insurance premiums to coincide with Obamacare, while failing to give policy holders a reasonable way to cancel policies.

Lead plaintiff Daniel L. Doyle sued Kentucky-based Humana on Tuesday.

Doyle says he received a letter from Humana in August stating that his policy would be canceled on Dec. 31, 2013 and replaced with a new one, to coincide with the Affordable Health Care Act.

The premium for the new policy would be $395.97 a month, significantly (73%) higher than the $229.30 a month Doyle had been paying.

Doyle says he received another letter on Oct. 24, 2013 with clarification to the August letter. He then found a better policy with another provider and wanted to cancel his policy with Humana.

"On or about November 20, 2013, Mr. Doyle was notified that he had new insurance coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield beginning December 1, 2013," the complaint states.

"Plaintiff then immediately attempted to contact Humana to cancel his policy but was unable to reach anyone who could assist him to cancel.

"Plaintiff again tried to cancel two to three days later. He again was unable to reach anyone at Humana who could assist him in cancelling his policy.

 "On numerous occasions, Mr. Doyle unsuccessfully attempted to cancel his policy by calling the toll-free number listed in the October 24, 2013 letter. Whenever Mr. Doyle called the toll-free number, he encountered an automated call system that would not enable him to speak to a person.

"Frustrated with the significant hold times and inability to speak with a human being, Mr. Doyle contacted his Blue Cross representative, who provided a fax number for Humana which he was unable to locate on Humana's website.

"On or about November 25, 2013, Mr. Doyle sent a facsimile to Humana providing Human with written cancellation of his policy.

"Humana refused to respond to Mr. Doyle's written cancellation request.

The class consists of all Humana policyholders in the United States who have been billed for insurance premiums on policies which were canceled by Humana on or before Dec. 31, 2013 and/or after the class member tried to cancel the policy.

Doyle seeks class certification, wants Humana enjoined from continuing its practices, disgorgement of profits from the scheme and actual and punitive damages for violations of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act.

Humana is one of the largest health insurers in the country, with more than $13 billion in revenue in 2013, according to the lawsuit.
Full Article and Source:
A Breach of Trust:  Humana Used Obamacare as Club Against Policyholders

See Also:
A Breach of Trust

Funds Allegedly Embezzled from "Distinctive Human Services" - a Pennyslvania Cambria County Guardianship Agency

The Social Security Administration is investigating the alleged embezzlement of funds from a Cambria County guardianship agency, which handles the finances of incapacitated people under its care.

According to a source close to the matter, more than a quarter of a million dollars has been bilked from the accounts of several dozen wards.

The nonprofit agency, Distinctive Human Services (DHS), serves as legal guardian to elderly and disabled people assigned to its care by the courts because they are unable to handle their own affairs.

A court document from the Cambria County Court of Common Pleas, scheduling a Jan. 3 status conference, said its purpose was “to update the court on the status of the investigation and expected payments on claims made by Distinctive Human Services … as a result of the embezzlement of funds by an employee.”

The claims were made with DHS’s insurance companies to cover the allegedly embezzled funds, according to Johnstown resident Joe Stigers, who was at the status conference in Judge Patrick T. Kiniry’s chambers.

He said the judge, the attorney for DHS and representatives of their insurance companies referred to the amount missing as more than $250,000.

Stigers’ wife was in the care of DHS for about a year and a half, but he is now her legal guardian and looking to recoup funds on her behalf.

Agents with the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia acknowledged an investigation involving DHS, but refused to comment because of the agency’s policy not to talk about ongoing cases.

Ellen Hamilton, executive director of DHS, did not return telephone calls to her home or office, but sent PublicSource an email.

“I cannot talk about any aspects of the business at DHS due to the fact we would be violating confidentiality and HIPAA laws,” she wrote, referring to the privacy rules established by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

The investigation is not the first of DHS’s troubles.

DHS also served as guardian to a woman whose death became a point of contention for the owner of the Washington County personal-care home where she lived.

Bonita Carter, 47, died in June after refusing kidney dialysis. The personal-care home owner, Garry McGrath, told PublicSource that he felt the guardian did not make enough effort to convince Carter to continue treatment.

He has petitioned the state Department of Public Welfare for a review of the case.

In August, PublicSource published an article about Norma Carpenter’s concerns about her 83-year-old mother, Mary Little, who has dementia and became a ward of DHS.

Carpenter, of Indiana County, said she is unaware of the current state of her mother’s finances.

“I’m concerned about everything,” she said. “This is an absolute travesty, and there’s no control. I’m not alone.”

Full Article and Source:
Funds Allegedly Embezzled From Cambria County Guardianship Agency

Outrage as Three French Teens Film Assault on Disabled Man

Three French teenagers have been detained after they filmed themselves assaulting a young mentally disabled man and posted the footage on Facebook, sparking widespread outrage, a police source said Tuesday.

 

The video filmed on Sunday in the southeastern town of Fontaine shows two of the boys pushing the 18-year-old in a park, making him fall and shouting at him before shoving him into a stream, from which the bewildered-looking victim emerges and walks away.

 

According to the police source, a 14-year-old and 15-year-old were detained on Monday over the assault and two other boys were held on Tuesday.

Full Article and Source;
Outrage as Three French Teens Film Assault on Disabled Man

Arizona Police Release 911 Call

Police on Monday released the 911 call that led to the arrest of an Arizona woman suspected of trying to kill her hospitalized husband by injecting fecal matter into his IV line.

The call came Friday afternoon from the Chandler Regional Medical Center's head of security.

Hospital staff said they found Rose Mary Vogel tampering with the IV line and saw a brown substance blocking the tube.

When it was searched in the hospital, Vogel's purse contained a total of three syringes, including two with a clear liquid, police said.

Police documents said Vogel, 55, is a retired registered nurse who formerly worked at the Chandler hospital.

On the 911 call, the security supervisor said hospital staff didn't see Vogel inject the fecal matter into the IV line, but she was the only person in the room when the tampering occurred.

"She was in the room, and she's a former nurse and she was playing with the IV pump and everything else," the unidentified male supervisor said.

Police said a hospital laboratory test identified the substance as fecal matter. and a trace amount of a brown substance also was found in the needle of an otherwise empty syringe found in Vogel's purse.

Full Article, Video and Source:
Rose Mary Vogel Update:  Police Release 911 Tape in Arizona Fecal Matter Case

Riverside County CA to Respond to Report Citing Deficiency in Public Guardian's Office

Riverside County supervisors voted 5-0 to receive and file the 19-member civil grand jury's report on the Public Guardian's Office and have the Executive Office address the jury's findings by March 11.

The Board of Supervisors directed staff to respond to a grand jury report that found Riverside County workers who manage the affairs of elderly and developmentally disabled residents are overburdened and operating under dated guidelines.

The board, without comment, voted 5-0 to receive and file the 19-member civil grand jury's report on the Public Guardian's Office and have the Executive Office address the jury's findings by March 11.
The grand jury completed an inquiry last fall that included interviews, an analysis of policies and procedures and inspections of numerous records in the Public Guardian's Office, a branch of the Department of Mental Health with a $1.5 million annual budget.

The office has 10 case workers, or deputies, three supervisors and a clerical staff of five, according to the grand jury.

Jurors noted that deputies are routinely called to investigate reports of abuse and to find suitable living arrangements for clients who have no assets and are dependent on Medicare or Medi-Cal.

The grand jury said it learned public guardian deputies carry caseloads as high as 196 conservatees.

Full Article and Source:
County to Respond to Report Citing Deficiency in Public Guardian's Office

Petition: Remove Absolute Judicial Immunity

For too long the Judicial community has enjoyed and misused Judicial Immunity.

It is time for reform!

SIGN the petition!

Pennsylvania: When a Guardian Decides on Life or Death

In May, Garry McGrath said, he and the staff of his Washington County personal-care home pleaded with 47-year-old Bonita Carter to continue having life-sustaining dialysis.

But Carter, who had a mental illness in addition to renal disease and frequently believed dialysis was a ploy, refused.

Carter died June 1, but a disagreement over her care continues. Mr. McGrath demanded that the state review Carter's death, saying her court-appointed guardian, Distinctive Human Services of Cambria County, agreed to let her cease treatment when it should have worked harder to keep her alive.

"This is about a human life that was terminated prematurely," he said in a Dec. 20 email to Mark Knouse, special adviser to Public Welfare Secretary Beverly Mackereth. When Carter consented to dialysis, Mr. McGrath said, she was energetic enough to walk into town a mile away.

Carter's story is a window on the complex interplay of physical- and mental-health care and on the challenges of guardianship, which can involve making life-or-death decisions for people unable to look after themselves. Kim Grier, president of the Centre County-based National Guardianship Association, said guardians can do only so much when clients refuse care.

"Guardianship does not give the guardian the authority to force somebody to do something they don't want to do," she said. "Guardianship does not remove free will from a person."

Full Article and Source:
When a Guardian Decides on Life or Death

Multiple Arrests Made After Investigation of "Loving Care Senior Citizen Home" in Georgia

New details have emerged about the poor conditions inside a Columbus senior care facility.

The Facility Director of Loving Care Senior Citizen Home was arrested on Dec. 4 on multiple charges. According to officials, Sheryl Drakeford willingly exploited disabled adults, elderly persons, or residents at the facility. Three others connected to the institution were arrested as well.

This was found during an inspection conducted by the Georgia Department of Community Health to verify if the facility met state requirements.

Two months prior to the arrests, allegations of human trafficking and sexual exploitation emerged after healthcare workers Marcus and KaShonda Miles were arrested.

Columbus Police began investigating the facility with agents from the FBI, Georgia Healthcare Facility Regulation Division, and other officials after learning that the licensed care facility was allegedly sending patients to unlicensed group homes. According to officials, Drakeford would take some elderly and disabled adults into her own home because the facility was overcrowded. Some patients slept on couches or bathroom floors due to lack of living space.

The "more obnoxious and troubling" patients" were sent to unlicensed facilities with even worse conditions. They would endure both physical cruelty and sexual abuse.

Patients were not given enough food to eat, and some food that was found in the facility was expired or exposed. Some bags of food were covered in bugs and roach feces.

Full Article, Video, and Source:
Multiple Arrests Made After Investigation At Columbus Senior Care Center

Nebraska DHHS Once Again in Hot Seat After State Audit Finds Issues in Elderly, Disabled Assistance Programs

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is once again found lacking in an audit conducted by the state auditor's office.

State Auditor Mike Foley made the announcement that assistance programs run by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services for the elderly, blind or disabled wasted millions of taxpayer dollars.

He added that some of the issues are criminal in nature as well.

The problem programs examined in the report are the Assistance to the Aged, Blind or Disabled program and the State Disability Program, which use nearly $15 million in state tax dollars each year.
The programs provide cash payments to qualified persons with little or no income for basic life needs, such as food, clothing, shelter and payments for medical expenses. Around 6,000 Nebraskans participate in the programs.

Foley says the audit team found that in 36 percent of the randomly selected cases, DHHS was making cash payments for basic living expenses or medical payments that were unreasonable or in direct violation of state law or regulations.

An example given in Foley's statement  included a payment of $645 for "living expenses" to a convicted felon who was at the time incarcerated in the State Penitentiary.

"Once again, the citizens of Nebraska have seen their hard-earned tax dollars squandered by the State's largest agency of government," shared Foley in his statement. "Clearly, the people who pay the bills have been disserved again."

Auditors also found that some disabled people continued to receive payments through the AABD program even after medical evaluations revealed they were no longer eligible for assistance.
The audit found hundred of thousands of dollars were paid out to individuals who wrongly had their applications approved by DHHS workers.

One of the most serious issues found during the audit related to a Scottsbluff woman who was named as the legal guardian for over 600 people across the state.

An investigation has been launched against Judith Widener, who authorities believe took hundreds of thousands of dollars from individuals to whom she was named a guardian.

Full Article and Source:
DHHS Once Again in Hot Seat After State Audit Finds Issues in Elderly, Disabled Assistance Programs

See Also:
Nebraska State Auditor: Guardian Fleeced State Wards

The Two Words That Cost Medicare Patients Thousands

New warning for everyone on Medicare :  specifically, it is about the words that appear on hospital forms and small differences in the fine print that could mean thousands of dollars in payments down the line.

79-year-old M.J. is doing physical therapy after a bad spill in September. She spent three days in the hospital getting the same care as an in-patient but was not classified as one. Instead, her chart said she was only UNDER OBSERVATION.

"It was illogical; I had a broken leg, it didn't make sense at all, what were they going to observe?"

And here is what she didn't understand:  that label, under observation, technically made her an out-patient and that means that Medicare won't care for her rehab in a nursing facility which costs $28,000.

Full Report and Video:

The Two Words That Cost Medicare Patients Thousands

Tonight on T.S. Radio: Elder Law in New Mexico: Are We Heading in the Right Direction?

Marcia Southwick will return to the show to give a summary of the state of New Mexico, adult legislations for 2013.  Marcia also publishes, Boomers Against Elder Abuse on Facebook.  This group is growing each day and heading towards 35,000 members.

In response to the exposure of the corruptive practices now being exposed in probate and family courts, many interested “stakeholders”……such as Guardianship associations, the BAR association, and many in the medical complex are leaning on state legislatures to expand their death grip on the elder community, and to make legal the theft of estates, the stripping of rights and the willful ignoring of standing state statutes meant to protect the victims from the predators.

Some of these new laws seem to heading backwards, but a few are good.

Issues are things like Due process, the role of guardian ad litem, Mediation, guardian background checks, guardianship financial authority, ward’s rights–etc. There are maybe 5 or so states to highlight, including New Mexico, Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, and Nevada.

In New Mexico, insanity has taken over.

5:00 pm PST … 6:00 pm MST … 7:00 pm CST … 8:00pm EST

LISTEN live or listen to the archive later

See Also:
FaceBook:  Boomers Against Elder Abuse

Facebook:  Bendigo Banksters

Facebook:  NASGA

Marti Oakley to guest on radio show today: How the Medical & Legal System Abuses Elders

On this episode we talk with Marti Oakley about how the medical and legal system is set up to take advantage of the elderly.

Marti is a political activist, elder advocate and publishes "The PPJ Gazette" (www.ppjg.me) on the web. Marti also been hosting her own radio show on Blogtalk for 3 1/2 years after being interviewed as a guest for several years on other internet and local AM/FM radio stations across the country.

In the past Marti was an OpEd columnist for the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota. Now, her articles and research have been picked up by several major sites especially those on the dangerous application of vaccines, issues within agriculture and now most especially, the organized crime rings operating in our family and probate courts and the hunting of our elderly with the intent of dispossessing them not only of their freedom and their lives, but most especially all of their assets.

1-3 CST......2-4 EST

LISTEN to the show live or listen to the archive later

Plans for Sweeping Change at CA Assisted Living Homes!

A bipartisan group of California legislators is calling for widespread changes in how the state licenses assisted-living homes, from increasing the public's ability to review complaints made against facilities to quadrupling the number of training hours required of caregivers.

With more than a dozen bills making up a residential-care-facility reform package - their costs not yet determined - advocates calling for greater transparency and accountability say they feel confident the money needed to fix the Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division will be there.

Those efforts will be aided by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who control the purse strings in each house as budget chairs. Both are authoring bills addressing residential-care concerns borne from last year's faulty closure of Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley.

More than a dozen residents were left behind at the assisted- living facility after the state ordered the care home to be closed but did little to ensure that its elderly residents were transferred or cared for.

A cook and a janitor with no training in caring for the elderly stayed with the residents after caregivers and managers left. The two, working without pay, repeatedly called 911, saying the residents needed help. The owner of the facility had previous violations at a facility in Oakland.

Most of the bills highlighted by lawmakers on Monday are sponsored by the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. State Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, has one of the key bills of the reform package, which requires annual state inspections of assisted-care facilities, compared with the every-five-years model currently in place.

Leno is planning to introduce a bill that bans assisted-living facilities from accepting new residents if serious health or safety violations have not been addressed or if there are unpaid fines. Other lawmakers have plans for bills that increase fines or require caregivers to have 40 hours of training, instead of 10 hours, before working with elderly residents.

Full Article and Source:
Plans for Sweeping Change At Assisted Living Homes

See Also:
CANHR.org

Missouri Coroner (Guardian) Accused of Spending $80K of Woman's (Ward's) Money

Perry County Coroner Herbert Miller is facing felony charges after he allegedly spent the money of a 94-year-old woman for his own use.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/15/4752937/missouri-coroner-accused-of-spending.html#storylink=cpy

Miller  was charged with financial exploitation of the elderly and theft after an investigation by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Service.

Court documents say Miller was appointed the woman's guardian in 2004. She went into a nursing home in 2008 with dementia and other disabilities.

Miller is accused of writing checks from the woman's account totaling $80,600. Investigators say the woman's bills at the nursing home weren't paid and she was denied Medicaid benefits, meaning she could be evicted.

Full Article and Source:
Missouri Coroner Accused of Spending $80,000 of Elderly Woman's Money