Nursing Homes Assisted Living & Other Facilities
1. What are the rights of nursing home residents?
Nursing homes provide nursing, rehabilitative and health-related care and services that cannot be provided outside an institutional setting. Residents of a nursing home have the same rights as they had when they lived in an apartment or their home. They pay the nursing home monthly for room, board and medical services. The nursing home is, on the one hand, the landlord of the resident for room and board, and on the other hand, the employee of the resident for medical services.
Ordinarily, upon entry into the nursing home, the resident or a family member signs a contract setting out the terms of payment, price for each service, and so forth. The resident and the family also get a copy of the nursing home residents rights, which include such things as the right to privacy; to manage one’s own finances; to unrestricted personal visitation; to present complaints without fear of reprisal; to equal access to quality care without regard to source of payment; to a written plan of care and services; and to free choice of one’s physician.
If the resident does not haveenough money to pay for nursing home care, or runs out of money after paying privately, there are governmental programs that may pay for the care, including veterans if benefits, Medicaid and General Assistance. If a nursing home is Medicaid-certified, the facility cannot evict a resident because he or she becomes eligible for Medicaid. However, not all facilities accept Medicaid, and those that do not are permitted to discharge residents for failure to pay for their care. There are waiting lists for nursing home beds in many parts of the state, and those lists are longer for applicants who will enter as Medicaid or General Assistance eligibles than for those with substantial private resources.
The only way to be evicted from a nursing home is for non-payment, or if you are endangering yourself or others. Even then, there are notice requirements and the nursing home must find an appropriate facility to which you can go before the eviction can proceed. (A resident can always leave the facility for overnight visits or discharge him or herself).
If a resident needs to be hospitalized, the nursing home will hold the bed open for the resident’s return as long as the bed is being paid for. Medicaid pays bedhold fees for 10 days. If the resident is in the hospital longer than 10 days, the resident gets the next available bed in the same nursing home upon discharge from the hospital. (Usually the hospital will keep the resident until the next bed opens).
If a nursing home resident has a complaint about the nursing home, he or she can complain to the administrator or to the New Jersey Office of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly at 1-877-582-6995. The complaint to the ombudsman can be made anonymously or, if you give your name, it can be kept confidential if you so request. The ombudsman can go to the nursing home unannounced in order to investigate.
2. What are the rights of assisted living and other residential facility residents?
Assisted living means a coordinated array of supportive personal and health services, available 24 hours per day, which promote resident self-direction and participation in decisions that emphasize independence, individuality, privacy, dignity and homelike surroundings to residents who have been assessed to need these services, including residents who require formal long-term care. An assisted living residence is a facility that provides apartment-style housing and congregate dining while assuring that assisted living services are available when needed. Other residential facilities can include a variety of settings, such as personal care homes, adult day care, and adult medical day care services.
The rights to be expected at an assisted living or other type of facility are similar to those proscribed by law to nursing homes. Residences are to provide services that are consistent with the following principles of assisted living:
- To provide personalized services and care to meet each resident’s needs;
- To foster the independence and individuality of each resident;
- To treat each resident with respect, courtesy, consideration, and dignity;
- To assure each resident the right to make choices with respect to services and lifestyle;
- To assure each resident’s right to privacy;
- To nurture the spirit and uniqueness of each resident;
- To encourage families and friends to participate in resident service planning and implementation; and
- To provide opportunities for the assisted living facilities and programs to become a valuable community resource.
3. What are the rights of boarding home residents?
Every resident of a boarding home shall have the right:
- to manage his or her own financial affairs;
- b) to wear his or her own clothing and in the style he or she prefers;
- to style his or her hair according to his or her preference;
- to keep and use personal property in his or her room, except where the boarding house can show that this would be unsafe, impractical or interfere with the rights of others;
- to receive and send unopened mail;
- to unaccompanied use of a telephone at a reasonable hour and to a private phone at the resident’s expense;
- to privacy;
- to hire his or her own personal doctor at his or her expense;
- to privacy concerning his or her medical condition or treatment;
- to unrestricted personal visitation with any person of his or her choice, at any reasonable hour;
- to make contacts with the community and to achieve the highest level of independence and interaction with the community of which he or she is capable;
- to present complaints on behalf of him or herself or others to government agencies or other persons without threat of reprisal in any form or manner whatsoever;
- to a safe and decent living environment and care that recognizes the dignity and individuality of the resident;
- to refuse to work for the boarding facility, except as contracted for by the resident and the operator;
- to practice his or her religion or to abstain from religious practice; and
- to not be deprived of any legal right solely by reason of residence in a boarding house.
4. Are owners allowed to retaliate against tenants who seek enforcement of their rights?
No owner, operator or employee shall serve an eviction notice upon a resident or take any other action in retaliation for:
- the efforts of the resident or a person acting on his or her behalf to enforce any rights under a contract or any law; or
- the good faith complaint of a resident or a person acting on his or her behalf to a government agency concerning the owner, operator or employee’s alleged violation of any health or safety law, or other law regulating rooming houses or boarding houses.
5. Can I be evicted?
Residents of rooming and boarding facilities licensed by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs may not ordinarily be evicted from such premises except for good cause as defined in New Jersey’s Just Cause for Eviction Act. Unless otherwise directed or authorized by the Department of Community Affairs, an operator who wishes to evict a resident must follow the same procedures and substantive laws that govern the eviction of other tenants under the Just Cause for Eviction Act. Residents may not, therefore, be evicted unless an operator can prove one of 16 specific grounds for eviction. These grounds include: (1) non-payment of rent; (2) disorderly conduct; (3) destroying or damaging property; (4) violating a reasonable agreement in the lease or residency agreement; (5) violating the operator’s rules and regulations; and (6) failure to pay a valid rent increase. The operator may only evict a resident by taking him or her to court and obtaining a court order called a judgment for possession.
Residents of residential health care facilities (RHCFs) licensed by the New Jersey Department of Health are not protected by the Just Cause for Eviction Act. However, such residents are entitled to at least 30 days advance written notice of a transfer or discharge from the facility. Additionally, except in an emergency, residents of RHCF’s may only be removed from the premises (1) for medical reasons; (2) for their welfare or the welfare of other residents; (3) for non-payment of rent; or (4) for repeated violations of the facility’s written rules and regulations. Residents may also be transferred or discharged if required by the department of health.
Elderly residents of nursing homes, residential healthcare facilities, boarding homes or any other such state-regulated facility offering health or health-related services to the institutionalized elderly, who experience abuse or exploitation from care providers, family members or strangers, should report these incidents to the Office of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly at 1-877-582-6995.
6. How canI protect my legal rights?
The operator of a boarding house must make sure that a written notice of the rights of boarding home residents is given to every resident upon admittance to the boarding home and to each tenant already living there. The operator must also post the notice in a conspicuous public place in the boarding facility. The notice shall include the name, address and telephone numbers of the Office of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly, county welfare agency and county office on aging.
Where their rights have been violated, residents can sue for damages, costs and attorney’s fees. Any boarding or rooming house resident whose rights are violated has the right to bring a lawsuit against any person committing such a violation. The action may be brought to enforce such rights and to recover actual and punitive damages for their violation. A tenant who wins any such lawsuit is also entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of the action.
