United States Elder Abuse Initiative


UNITED STATES SENATE HEARINGS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGING

Statement of Paul D. Hodge, JD, MBA, Chairperson National Health Care Law Enforcement Alliance

ELDER ABUSE: A NATIONAL SCANDAL

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Paul Hodge, Chairperson of the National Health Care Law Enforcement Alliance (“NHLEA”), the first organization of its kind in the nation to promote the creation of national proactive grass roots law enforcement related programs to protect our elder citizens in their home environment. I am pleased to represent my organization on whose behalf I am testifying. But I also speak from the perspective of a “front line” elder advocate and law enforcement person who, on a daily basis, has been intimately involved in and deeply committed to the fight against elder abuse in my home state of Rhode Island, the northeast and nationally.

In addition to my current duties as NHLEA Chairperson, for the past seven years ending in January of this year, I was Director of Investigations of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office. This law enforcement unit has primary statewide responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of instances of elder/vulnerable individual abuse or neglect, which takes place in health care facilities such as nursing homes, hospitals, group homes and, to a growing extent, assisted living facilities. While Director of Investigations, I was Chairperson of the Northeast Healthcare Law Enforcement Association, a “first-of-its kind” regional law enforcement unit whose mission was to enhance the vigorous investigation and prosecution of’ instances of elder/patient abuse and provider health care fraud in all the New England states, New York and New Jersey. Prior to this, for five years, I was a prosecutor with the Federal Trade Commission and the Massachusetts Office of Attorney General working in consumer protection law enforcement prosecutions affecting our elder citizens.

In these varied roles, I have worked closely with local police departments, district/state/attorneys general offices, legislators, regulators, protective service personnel, ombudsmen, concerned elder community based groups and elder activists. I have had the unique experience of being involved with literally thousands of screenings, investigations and prosecutions of incidents concerning elder abuse in its many forms. In the last five years, it has been my observation that law enforcement throughout the country is experiencing an exponential increase in the number of reports, investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed against elder adults. Because of the aging of the American population and the increasing inability of our families, health care and other institutions to ensure the quality of life of our elder citizens, the demands on the nation’s law enforcement infrastructure to protect them from abusive and criminal acts is fast becoming one of the most significant societal challenges of the coming millennium.

Despite the extensive achievements of law enforcement and other concerned parties, elder citizens are still the number one target for crooks and other perverse predators. An aggressive national initiative must be mounted to address the demographic realities that the United State’s population is aging, reports of elder crimes are dramatically increasing and current law enforcement efforts and resources are severely strained and presently inadequate to meet the increase of these types of crimes.

The work you are doing here today is of critical importance. So first, let me thank and commend you Mr. Chairman for holding these hearings about the Older Americans Act and elder abuse. You are providing important national leadership in our efforts to make safe, protect and enhance the quality of life for our elder and vulnerable citizens.




Elder Abuse Articles

  • Lawyers Plead Their Case For Stopping Financial Elder Abuse
    Jerry Beigel

    California Law Watched Nationally Let’s call her Susan Gray. She’s about age 60 and lives in Southern California. She discovers that the friend who has been looking after her 85-year-old mother in Burbank has gained access to her mother’s bank account and has withdrawn most of the $80,000 balance. The friend is unable and unwilling to account for how the money was spent. Gray calls several lawyers, but soon learns that there is little she can do, despite laws on the state’s books to protect people like her and her mother from such crooks. Legislators often say new laws aren’t needed and that statutes already on the books merely need to be enforced. That is not always so simple, as is made clear by some current discussion in California and elsewhere on protecting elders from financial abuse. In the 1980s, Los Angeles attorney Marc Hankin, angered by events that affected his family, took up the cause of protecting older adults from various legal and medical inadequacies as well as outright scams. During he past decade, he has helped author several measures passed by the California Legislature that ostensibly protect older people from abuses by nursing homes, medical providers, scam artists [...]



  • Is Elder Abuse a Crime?
    Rosalie S. Wolf, Paul Hodge, and Pamela Roberts

    Is Elder Abuse a Crime? Most physical, sexual, and financial/material abuses are considered crimes in all states insofar as these acts violate statutes prohibiting crimes such as assault, battery, rape, theft, etc. In addition, depending on the perpetrators’ conduct and intent, and the consequences for the victim, certain emotional abuse and neglect cases are subject to criminal prosecution. State criminal statutes, adult protective laws, and federal statutes such as Medicare define and establish penalties for abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable adults. Prosecution of perpetrators is rare, however, and may be hampered by several factors including victims’ fear of retaliation, hesitancy to prosecute family members, or lack of capacity to describe the crime or perpetrator. While there has been some increase in cases prosecuted (particularly in the area of nursing home abuse largely due to aggressiveness of Medicaid Fraud Units), justice for elder abuse victims requires continued specialized training for police officers and other first responders, district attorneys, victim/witness professionals, lawyers, and the courts. Recent Developments Efforts are underway by the criminal justice system to improve response to elder abuse. Here in brief are some recent developments: State Attorney General Offices and District Attorneys are setting up specialized elder abuse [...]



  • Fighting Over the Care of Aging Parents

    More Siblings Clashing Over Money and Control Deciding how to care for a parent who can no longer care for herself is among life’s most emotionally perilous experiences. In many families, that journey is made by adult children who together work out what is best for the parent and then lean on each other for solace and support. But in growing numbers today, these decisions are moving out of private agreements arranged in living rooms and into public disagreements aired in courtrooms. There, judges and lawyers wade into thickets of familial ill-will so dense that strangers must be appointed as guardians to determine where the parent should live, how her life savings should be spent and even, finally, how she should die. No one knows for sure how often such cases end up in the nation’s probate courts. But judges, lawyers and advocates for the elderly say that sibling battles rooted in issues of inheritance, control and care are becoming so common that some believe the field of elder law will be as ubiquitous as real estate law in the next decade. The questions are complex and growing increasingly urgent, involving not only the care of the parent, but . [...]