The Washington Post is on the attack again, publishing a story last Friday on the overuse of 911 calls when a resident falls in assisted living or independent living, and how some towns are starting to charge seniors housing communities a fee for each 911 visit of this sort. Apparently, in some towns these 911 “fall” calls have been rising.
If we were living in a non-litigious world, perhaps the seniors housing communities would not feel as if they had to call. In some states, it is required if the resident can’t get up on their own. I used to live next door to a small independent living community that we called an unlicensed assisted living building because it had small units, mostly studios, and the residents were more like who you would expect to see in an AL community. Every other day, or more often, an ambulance would arrive, and when I inquired, they said that because they were not licensed, if a resident fell and could not get up on their own, they had to call 911, whether there was an injury that could be seen or not. The staff were not allowed to try to get the resident up, even if they physically could.
This seemed a bit absurd, until you start to think about family members calling lawyers, or if something did happen in the fall but the staff was not trained to diagnose it, there could be serious liability issues. Or, The Washington Post or New York Times might start investigating. The fact that these communities charge $5,000, $7,000 or more a month has little to do with what happens after a fall, or what might happen. And when the fire department or ambulance crew arrives, once they determine that the resident is fine and they get them up, they can leave. We have never heard of a “real” emergency not getting the attention it needs because they are picking up a resident at a senior living community who fell.
What we need is more common sense with regulations and litigation. Until that happens, the 911 calls will continue to be made, and everyone will be frustrated.
