Eric J Hertz is honored to announce that he has been appointed to the State Bar of Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission Nominating Committee. Kenneth B Hodges, III, current Georgia State Bar President, states, “It gives me great pleasure to appoint you to the JQC Nominating Committee. Your willingness to accept this responsibility is very much appreciated and we are counting on your active participation on this committee.”
Nursing Home Cases Are More Complex Than Med Mal Cases
Obtaining justice for those who are not able to do so for themselves is our mission. Doing so in a nursing-home case adds an additional layer of complexity to a traditional medical-malpractice case. You need to be an expert in not only in medicine and standard-of-care issues, but also in nursing-home regulations, Medicare/Medicaid reporting, accounting, and the shell games corporations play to hide their profits at the expense of resident care.
Only a year ago, Signature HealthCARE, one of the country’s largest operators of nursing homes, teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, owing millions of dollars to company landlords. Recently, those landlords, Sabra Health Care REIT (Nasdaq: SBRA) and Omega Healthcare Investors (NYSE: OHI) finalized a deal with Signature that seemingly averts the immediate looming financial disaster. While the details of the agreement consume hundreds of pages, the basic plan is simple: Signature’s landlords will permit the company to defer over 25 million dollars in overdue and pending rent payments for three years, while also providing Signature with a similar amount of cash for capital expenditures and working capital. A substantial portion of the money being loaned will even go toward payment of 30 million dollars that Signature owes the U.S. government after being charged in federal court with illegally profiting by providing and charging nursing-home residents with excessive therapy services without regard to the need for such services.
Commenting on the settlement, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Bjay Pak, stated: “Our most vulnerable citizens are put at risk when healthcare providers put their financial interests above their patients’ needs and valuable federal funds are diverted from where they are surely needed.” United States Department of Justice Press Release No. 18-752, June 8, 2018.
If you believe your clients may have fallen victim to a similar violation of their rights, please feel free to give us a call to discuss.