Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
STAFFING, NOT POLICING, KEY ON ELDER ABUSE, SAYS AHCA
Legislation to decrease abuse of the elderly would be better if it focused on the need to add staff in long-term-care facilities and train workers in anger management and similar skills, according to the American Health Care Association.
The bill, introduced Feb. 10 by Sens. John Breaux (D-LA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), would establish federal offices to coordinate elder-abuse initiatives, require federal criminal background checks for LTC workers, require reporting of crimes that occur in LTC settings, implement victim-assistance programs, and provide training grants for law-enforcement officers and prosecutors. The bill also includes small programs, including demonstration projects, to bring more well trained workers in to long-term care. Breaux introduced similar legislation in 2002.
While AHCA supports many of its individual provisions, the legislation comes at the problem backwards and should make “abuse prevention the first legislative priority,” AHCA President Charles Roadman, MD, said in a statement. “The trend toward criminalizing long-term care will not improve … quality. … It only serves to drive away and further demoralize qualified caregivers at a time we as a nation can least afford to do so.”
To improve the bill, lawmakers should focus on developing collaboration between law-enforcement officials and the LTC community; appropriate federal funds for continuing education of LTC staff; and develop data on where elder abuse takes place, including in private homes, to avoid inappropriately demonizing workers, says AHCA. Also needed, says the group, is significant federal funding to offer continuing education and training for LTC workers and increase staffing levels.
“Unfortunately, recent Medicare cuts ... and the chronic underfunding of Medicaid only serve to undermine our collective ability to find and retain qualified staff.”
In its statement, AHCA specifically ties abuse to staffing problems: “Most abuse is caused by frustration, lack of specific training in patient-management issues, and overwork.”
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