Md. gets $2.2M in settlement with nursing-home operator over evictions

WASHINGTON — The State of Maryland has settled a case against a nursing-home operator accused of “resident dumping” — the unwarranted eviction of elderly residents in an attempt to get more money from the government.

The office of Attorney General Brian Frosh announced the settlement Friday with Neiswanger Management Services, which operated five nursing facilities in the state, and its owner, Matthew Neiswanger. The company, which stopped operating nursing homes in February of this year, is now permanently “precluded” from doing so, and can no longer be a Maryland Medicaid provider. The company will also pay the state $2.2 million and drop a lawsuit against some workers at the state Department of Health.

Frosh’s office said in the statement that the company issued eviction notices to hundreds of nursing-home residents for supposed nonpayment, although the residents in fact were paid up.

The company did this when their facilities were at full capacity, and did so because the residents were on Medicaid and the company wanted to replace them with people whose care would be paid for by Medicare, which typically pays more, Frosh’s office said.

The company sent out at least 1,061 eviction notices between Jan. 1, 2015, and May 31, 2016, more than twice the number issued by Maryland’s other 225 licensed nursing homes combined, the attorney general’s office said.

Many evicted residents were “dumped … in homeless shelters and predatory unlicensed assisted living facilities, where they faced financial exploitation and abuse,” Frosh’s office said.

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Md. gets $2.2M in settlement with nursing-home operator over evictions