Orange County Hospice Fraud Lawyer

Hospice fraud is occurring more often, and it is resulting in seniors in Southern California suffering serious harm and not getting the lifesaving care they need. When a patient who can be treated and sustained is placed in hospice care, the approach to care changes in a way that often denies the patient appropriate medical care. When the patient is suffering from the end stage of a terminal disease, that hospice care may be totally appropriate. But with if the patient is not “dying?” At Southern California Nursing Home Law Group, we are seeing more and more patients admitted to hospice at the urging of the nursing facility when, in truth, the patient is not really a candidate for hospice. Then, because of their status as a hospice patient, those patients are sometimes denied life-sustaining care that could allow them to live for many more months or years.

If you suspect your loved has been place on hospice for questionable reasons, our Orange County hospice fraud lawyers can provide you with more information and can help you to file a legal claim if the facts warrant it.

Has the assisted-living facility where your elderly loved one currently resides attempted to convince you that your loved one should receive hospice treatment even though no terminal illness exists? The facility might insist that hospice care can allow your loved one to remain in his or her current residence while receiving medical care. Your first instinct might be to think that this could be a good way to avoid having your parent spend an extended period of time uncomfortably in a hospital setting or nursing home since hospice care would allow your parent to remain in a home-like setting. In addition, the assisted-living facility could explain to you that this decision may also make sense financially since hospice care can be covered fully by Medicare or Medi-Cal. Yet you also may have a sense that hospice care does not make sense when your parent is not dying. You could be experiencing hospice fraud.

Hospice care is not intended for a patient who can be treated for a disease, illness, or medical condition. To be sure, the Hospice Foundation of America explains that hospice care is for terminally ill patients and is not designed in any way for patients who can be cured, or for patients expected to live more than six months.

There are obvious financial harms associated with hospice fraud, but there are also physical harms. When a patient in an assisted-living facility suddenly requires medical treatment that would require hospitalization and is placed in hospice care instead, that patient is not likely to recover.

When should you seek advice from a hospice fraud lawyer in Orange County? If any of the following have occurred, you should get help now:

• Assisted-living facility has recommended hospice care despite the fact that your loved one does not have a terminal illness likely to end life within six months
• You have an elderly loved one in an assisted-living facility who needs treatment in a hospital or skilled nursing facility, and hospice care has been presented as an option
• Assisted-living facility has indicated it has a relationship with a hospice provider, and you have reason to believe the facility could be receiving kickbacks
• Assisted-living facility or hospice provider has informed you that hospice care can be beneficial for patients who are not necessarily dying
• Your loved one entered hospice care at the recommendation of an assisted-living facility in order to receive medical treatment, or
• Your loved one entered hospice care at the recommendation of an assisted-living facility even though she or he does not have an illness or condition likely to result in death in the next six months, yet your loved one’s condition has deteriorated.

While recent hospice reform bills were signed into law in California in October 2021 as Becker’s Hospital Review reports, hospice fraud can still occur.

Do you need assistance with a hospice fraud claim? Our Orange County hospice fraud lawyers can assist you. Contact the Southern California Nursing Home Law Group today.