I have been visiting a Colorado Springs LTC facility and have made friends with several residents.
The facility has told me that I may not visit, since I am not a family member. The residents love it when I visit, and welcome me warmly, and I have always been calm, polite, and respectful.
I have faced increasing opposition from the facility's administrators, even to the point where I have been threatened with arrest if I set foot on the premises.
I have had no help from Ombudsmen or State Surveyors. I even Filed a court action to enjoin them from harassing and threatening me. It was dismissed for "lack of subject matter jurisdiction."
There is a new Executive Director that doesn't seem to personally mind if I visit, as she has seen residents that I know welcome me, but Corporate is vigorously defending their "right" to isolate residents from visitors, even though they are in direct violation of Federal law.
My behavior has not been called into question, and I even had them run a background check on me which came back clean.
Can you think of anything that I can do to stop this abuse?
-Kris
You have no idea . . . you may be making any number of family members uncomfortable with your friendships. It may have been one person who mentioned your visits . . . it may be six. You don't know. But you DO know you've been asked to obey their rules and discontinue their visits. Your reaction to that is somewhat off-putting. The more you object? The more convinced THEY are that they made the right decision.
There is nothing more you can do. If you can't move on from this, you need counseling. I urge you to consider it.
That is not the case with me. I was greatly relieved when my mother died, and move on very quickly. I just saw an opportunity to visit the sick, as I already had friends there.
I remembered that Jesus said "I was sick and you visited me." I thought it through carefully and then decided to make a commitment. I do not make or take commitments lightly.
That is my suspicion. She is quite bitter and nasty.
The facility is a Medicare Facility, and have agreed to follow the Federal law, and the CMS guidelines as a condition of their certification.
Some have suggested that I visit other more welcoming facilities, but these are individuals that I know and love. They are not replaceable. Some have expressed dismay and confusion when they saw me escorted away by security.
The CMS guidelines do not mention insufficient prior relationship as a condition. They say that any individual must be given equal visitation privileges as long as the resident consents. The only condition is that they may deny someone if they are a security risk. Since I gave them all of my personal info, and they ran a background check on me, and I have NEVER met with anyone in private, I don't believe that I have given them any reason to consider me a risk. I also have met with the new Director, and she doesn't personally have any problem with me visiting, but the two previous administrators were real bastards about it. They even at one point said that I was stalking the head nurse, and that gave them legal grounds. They have since abandoned the stalking allegation, since I pointed out that I have never phoned, emailed, talked privately with, or even written a note to the head nurse.
Sounds like the one family that dies nit like you complained, and it only takes one.
Take Care
I can't imagine why you are fighting this battle so intensely that you've even reported the nursing home to authorities. If you did something to injure a resident or interfered with staff to the detriment of a patient, there would be some liability on their part, in my opinion.
You say you turned down an offer to become a volunteer. They gave you a legitimate reason to be there that fit their rules, and you turned them down. That's telling.
Time for you to move on.
Your link applies to Medicare and Medicaid. My friend has Medicare, but her ALF is still private pay.
In other words that rule may not apply.
Actually I do have a prior relationship with the residents. When my mother was there I made friends with most all the residents on the floor. My mother was very pleased to see that, so after she passed, I continued to visit my friends. There is no way that I could be scamming anyone, since I only meet with them in the common area in the presence of staff. When I run into family members, they have been pleased and supportive, except for one particular family member whose mother is there, and I don't even speak to her mother.
If you have a passion for supporting the elderly, perhaps you can do so through an organization such as a church or support groups.
You have no "rights" here, the facility can block stranger visits and the families likely would support the facility's judgement.
They are required by Federal law to let the residents receive any visitor that the resident consents to see.
Please see this CMS directive: http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/Survey-and-Cert-Letter-13-42.pdf