Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced that Ohio-based nursing home chain CommuniCare Family of Companies will pay $400,000 and one of their Maryland nursing homes will be subject to independent oversight for three years. This arrangement, the result of an extensive investigation by the Office of Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit (MFVVU), addresses allegations that the company violated the Maryland False Health Claims Act by providing substandard care to hundreds of residents at the Ellicott City Healthcare Center, a nursing home in Ellicott City, Maryland. The settlement includes a monitoring agreement under which the Office of Attorney General will now oversee the facility for three years using an outside expert monitoring company paid for by CommuniCare. The settlement marks the first time in Maryland history that the state’s fraud statute has been used to address broad deficiencies in care at a Maryland nursing home, and the first time that OAG has imposed a monitoring agreement on a nursing home.
