Robert D. Wachter made lots of money by running 11 nursing homes in Missouri. He also made history, though not the way he wanted.
Some homes were houses of horror for many vulnerable residents. He defrauded Medicare and Medicaid with fake claims for basic services he didn’t provide.
For years, residents suffered from dehydration, malnutrition, bedsores and filth. Seniors who couldn’t feed themselves went hungry. An 88-year-old woman languished in her own waste and was found covered in insects; she died two weeks later.
Another senior fractured her ribs and vertebrae when she fell from her bed, but received no pain medication. Confused residents wandered away from the facilities without supervision. One 78-year-old was beaten by an employee and later died from his injuries.
Billed for worthless services
Even as Wachter withheld essential care and understaffed the homes, taxpayers footed the bills. Three nursing homes billed Medicare and Medicaid for “worthless services” under the federal False Claims act. It was among the first if such prosecutions under the act, experts say, and a resounding wake-up call for the nursing home industry.
He received 18 months in federal prison, and $750,000 in fines was levied against his company and Claywest House Health Care in St. Charles, Lutheran Care Center in St. Louis and Oak Forest North in St. Louis County. Four other nursing homes owned by the parent company American Healthcare Management also are being investigated.
Wachter’s conviction may be the biggest development in oversight of nursing homes since the passage of the federal Nursing Home Care Act in 1987, says Violette King, executive director of the watchdog group Nursing Home Monitors.
Wachter offered an apology, of sorts, after pleading guilty.
“Mistakes were made,” he said.
This was cold comfort for Joyce Thiele and Gloria Stringer, who picked ants off their mother at Claywest. But the case would be a warning for other nursing-home operators, they said. “We’re out here and we’re coming to get you,” Thiele warned. “It’s not if you’re going to get caught—it’s when.”
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