Nursing homes are suing family and friends to gather on patients’ billsPlay

Barbara Robinson was just attempting to help her mother’s friend join for Medicaid and move into the Monroe County nursing home in Rochester, Recent York. But because Robinson signed the admissions form, the nursing home considered her financially answerable for the girl’s care, Anna Werner reported for CBS News. After the girl died, the county sued Robinson for $21,000 in unpaid bills.

This report was done in partnership with a KHN-NPR investigation of America’s medical debt crisis. Noam N. Levey, KHN senior correspondent, wrote about Lucille Brooks, one other woman sued by Monroe County, this time over her brother’s nursing home bill.

Pursuing unpaid bills, nursing homes across Rochester have been routinely suing not only residents but their friends and families, a KHN review of court records reveals. In most of those cases, the people sued didn’t have an attorney. In nearly a 3rd, the nursing homes won default judgments since the defendants never responded.

Consumer attorneys in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Recent York, and Ohio told KHN they often see such lawsuits against family and friends.

Judge Debra Martin dismissed the case against Robinson. She admonished the county, saying its case, presented without documentation, “doesn’t meet the bare minimum requirements.”

Brooks is now within the clear, too, after the county dropped its case against her.