Senators seek federal review of nursing home trust funds

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the U.S. Senate Aging Committee requested a cheap cosplay costumes  federal review Monday to determine whether sufficient oversight is in place to make sure nursing homes properly manage trust funds they are required to maintain to safeguard residents' money.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., made the request following a USA TODAY investigation, published last week, which found that thousands of nursing home residents have had their savings stolen or mismanaged while held in the trust accounts. He asked the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services to examine whether additional steps are needed to ensure that the funds are handled and protected appropriately.
USA TODAY's story "revealed an alarming number of cases involving unscrupulous and dishonest employees of nursing homes who siphoned, forged, and swindled millions of dollars from the trust fund accounts of unsuspecting and helpless residents," Nelson wrote. He requested that the IG examine "management and oversight" of the trust funds and "recommend corrective actions for any shortcomings."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, supported Nelson's call for the review.
"I hope the inspector general will … identify solutions to better protect nursing home residents," Grassley, a former Aging Committee chairman, said in a statement. "The solutions might be a combination of state, federal and industry initiatives. In the meantime, the industry should do everything possible to protect the residents who have entrusted the nursing homes with their savings."
Nursing homes and other long-term care providers for the elderly and disabled generally are required to provide and maintain the trust fund accounts for residents who request that the facility handle their money. The funds are supposed to work like conventional bank accounts, with accrued interest, regular statements and reliable oversight.
But USA TODAY found more than 1,500 recent cases in which nursing homes have been cited by state and federal regulators for mishandling the funds.
The newspaper identified scores of cases in which employees — usually business or office staff — siphoned huge sums of money from trust accounts, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some instances, for everything from shopping and gambling sprees to routine household expenses. In hundreds more cases, facilities failed to pay interest on the funds, could not account for their holdings, or did not carry adequate insurance to protect the money from loss or theft.
Because the funds are supposed to be insured, residents whose money is stolen or mishandled typically get reimbursed. But USA TODAY's investigation found that the confusion and emotional damage buy cosplay costumes  that residents suffer when their savings is mishandled can last well beyond the time that the funds are restored.