It’s not easy for Californians seeking care for themselves or their loved ones to find out if someone involved with another kind of care facility has been banned from running an assisted living home by the California Department of Social Services.
The names of barred individuals aren’t posted anywhere that is readily available to the public, according to Social Services. A state bill that would have required the list of banned individuals to be prominently posted on a state website died in Sacramento nearly a decade ago.
“We couldn’t convince anybody that this was important,” said Christine Murphy, former executive director of Consumer Advocates for RCFE Reform, an advocacy group focused on assisted living facilities.
Among the objections from state officials, she said, was the possibility that other people might share the same names as banned individuals, which “would cause havoc with people being misidentified.”
Licensing officials at Social Services also said there wasn’t a need to make the list of banned individuals public because the department would check it before giving someone a license, Murphy recalled.
State regulators told The Times they share information about people banned from assisted living with relevant agencies. Social Services said it sends a spreadsheet once a month to the California Department of Public Health and updates a records system accessible to other agencies, including Health Care Services.
But that doesn’t mean that other agencies have to act on that information.
Public Health said it could consider whether someone was banned from eldercare when deciding whether to grant a license or allow a facility to change administrators. But if an existing facility is simply renewing its license, Public Health said it doesn’t typically check if people there have been banned by Social Services.
“We are reviewing our processes to improve oversight” and to ensure information submitted by applicants is valid, Public Health said in a written response to questions from The Times. “As part of this, we are looking into the facilities you’ve provided to examine the issues you’ve described and potentially take action.”
Public Health pointed out that it maintains an online database where people can enter a name and get a list of health facilities tied to someone with the same name.
But it won’t confirm whether a “John Smith” who runs a health facility is the same “John Smith” who was banned from assisted living homes.
Eric Carlson, of the nonprofit Justice in Aging, said it shouldn’t be up to consumers to do that detective work. They “depend on the licensing agencies to do that level of vetting,” he said.
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