Record Verdict Against Nursing Home Has Industry Worried
A record $677 million verdict against a California nursing home has shaken the "industry" to its core. The verdict was the result of a class action lawsuit representing 32,000 patients against Skilled Healthcare Group, Inc., the corporate owner of 22 nursing homes throughout the State of California. The testimony of Cindy Cool, the daughter of one of the nursing home's patients, was believed to be key to the jury's unprecedented verdict. Ms. Cool testified that it would take upwards of 20 minutes after she called for someone to come and help her to change her father, an Alzheimer's victim, who was wearing urine soaked clothes. Other patients fared much worse, Ms. Cool said.
The verdict has revived calls for tort-reform as another example of "litigation abuse." The calls for tort reform don't show any concern for "patient abuse", or provide a way to stop it. Unfortunately, healthcare stopped being "health care" a long time ago and has now become big business. Once Wall Street fell in love with nursing homes in the early part of this decade and snatched up their stocks, companies are no longer concerned about the care provided to patients. They must now make sure that their stock price stays high by keeping their bottom line acceptable to Wall Street, at the cost of patient care.
The lawsuit accused Skilled Healthcare of failing to provide a minimum of 3.2 nursing hours per day per patient at their facilities, as required by California law. The 3.2 hour standard should have been easy to meet as federal law requires a minimum of 4.1 nursing hours per day per patient. But still, Skilled Healthcare chose not to meet the California standard. If they could not sustain the minimum hours, they should have refused to accept any more patients or simply hire more nurses. Instead, the company's CEO believes that its nursing homes are appropriately staffed. Those that decry the jury system provide no alternative means to force change upon those that choose not to follow the law. They ask for "caps" on awards, judge trials and reduction in the time that people have to sue but provide no means or mechanism to force companies like Skilled Healthcare to comply with state or federal law. But for this lawsuit, would Skilled Healthcare have changed their standards and hired more skilled staff? As has been demonstrated throughout our history, consumer's bring about real change only when economics forces companies to do so.
