Department of Financial Services investigating nursing home debt collection practices

How do nursing homes go about collecting money they are owed?

That’s a question recently explored in a News10NBC investigative piece- targeting the ways facilities do that. Throughout the pandemic- they published a series of pieces on the suits against friends, relatives, and even neighbors of nursing home residents who owed debts to those facilities.

Now, the Department of Financial Services is investigating whether nursing home’s debt collection practices are legal.

There had been a number of these types of suits filed in the Rochester-area. Investigation found that most of those lawsuits were filed by Underberg and Kessler, a Rochester-based firm. Pullano and Farrow filed a handful too, according to News10NBC’s reporting.

The DFS investigation goes back years- requesting data and documents from the firms for upwards of four years.

Specifically, the state is investigating whether legal suits were filed, or if the suits were unlawful.

Staff Report

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