Florida Nursing Home Lawyer Blog
Investigators with the Government Accountability Office reported recently there are giant gaps in the collection of data on the financial abuse of seniors in nursing homes, making it next to impossible to accurately quantify the scope of the problem.
The acting director of the agency’s Forensic Audit and Investigative Service Team offered up the latest report to members of the U.S. Senate’s Aging Committee. It’s the first comprehensive look at financial abuse of the elderly in six years. Unfortunately, the report is based on scant evidence – a limited review of just eight cases that were closed between 2011 and 2015. The agency is only allowed to examine cases that have been closed, and that can in some cases take years.
In most cases, the acting director said it’s the court systems of the state – not the federal government – that are in charge of keeping track of financial abuse. However, that isn’t happening in a lot of cases, which means we don’t have a clear picture of how serious a problem this is. Continue reading →