[responsive_vid] Should you sign a nursing home agreement for a family member? What is a “responsible party”? These are some of the important questions addressed by Jim Schuster.
First let’s be clear. The nursing home admission agreement is a legally binding contract. Those who sign are bound to the terms of the contract. Some of these obligations can financially harm the representative of the nursing home resident.
A nursing home contract is required by law and it is a good thing. Your resident is paying a lot of money – or incurring a huge bill – and you want to know what you should get for what you pay. However, the agreement does not always spell out the rights of the resident that must be respected by the home. Nursing home residents have rights guaranteed by the 1987 federal Nursing Home Reform Law and conforming state statutes. That is the subject for another blog post.
You should expect the nursing home contract and supporting information to cover the subjects of: services included in the daily rate and services for which there is an extra charge; whether the home participates in the medicare and medicaid programs and with your managed care organization; pharmacy arrangements; financial matters including daily and extra charges; resident personal funds; responsible party obligations; refusal of services; resident’s rights duties and grievance procedure; recognition of designation of patient representative; policy on restraints and such devices; resident property; use of resident’s photograph and/or recordings for identification or publication; access to resident’s records; transfers & discharges; re-admission and bed hold policy. These are items you want to know about.
As I said the contract will not lay out all the resident’s rights under the law. And, the contract may involve waiver of some rights. It is not illegal for a person to knowingly waive his/her rights, which is why you should carefully review, not simply sign, the contract. One of the things you want to look for language that says the responsible party will be responsible for obtaining Medicaid or otherwise being responsible to get the nursing home bill paid. Remember, the bill is the resident’s, not yours. Tell the admission person you would like to take the papers with you to review.
What if you signed a contract to admit a family member to the nursing home? Do you want to revoke your agreement? Sometimes if you go back the admissions person will agree that an arbitration agreement is voluntary and that you do not have to sign it and you can revoke your agreement. Sometimes they will agree that a resident can sign his own agreement. If you present the question “really dad should sign his own agreement” they will often agree and let dad sign the papers and destroy those with your signature.
What is a “Responsible party”? (Let’s use RP. It’s shorter.) Under federal law a responsible party is the person who is managing the resident’s money. The RP is not responsible for the nursing home bill and not responsible for securing payment from Medicare, Medicaid or insurance. The RP is responsible for using the resident’s money for the resident’s benefit, not the RP’s benefit. That’s all. Of course an RP can waive his rights through a little paragraph in the middle of a multi-page nursing home agreement. That is why is important to read it. It is a binding legal contract that a nursing home enforce in court.
