Category: Consumer Protection
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Widespread Inaccuracies of Records on Autism Treatment Providers
By James C. Sherlock The author has completed a detailed survey of individual Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) providers in New Jersey licensed by Virginia Medicaid to provide services to children with autism. He picked New Jersey for reasons familiar to readers of his work on nursing home chains. The survey revealed that most of those…
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In the Business of Health Care Fraud, Virginia is Minnesota
by James C. Sherlock Health care fraudsters are often treated by Virginia elected officials in the same way moonshiners were in this state, as local heroes pursued only by the feds. Many prefer not to interrupt the product flow. They simply want a taste from the jar. Dick Hall-Sizemore, a dedicated contributor to BR and a good…
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Scam: Look What They Did to Poor Virtus!
by Kerry Dougherty Hairbags. Scum. Thieves. Con artists. Swindlers. Grifters. I’m running out of nouns. No, I’m not talking about politicians. I’m talking about the con artists who spend their time trying to fleece hard-working Americans. Who knows if they operate from Internet cafes in Nigeria, Myanmar or Short Pump. All we know is that…
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Who Owns Virginia Mercury?
by James C. Sherlock The author just read a news article by the prolific Markus Schmidt in the Virginian-Pilot. It was a reprint of an article Mr. Schmidt wrote for his employer, the Virginia Mercury. His full-throated support of Virginia Democrats is his right. Examples abound: Virginia AG Jones joins 21 attorneys general condemning DOJ…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Homes – Part 7 – How to Stop A Deadly Scheme
by James C. Sherlock A brutal pattern is observed repeatedly. Some chains offering the worst nursing homes in America have established a singular process for profit maximization. It is seen in a combination of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data on their operating subsidiaries and city/county property records on their real estate…
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Virginia’s Worst Nursing Home Chains – Part Six – A Picture of Deceit
by James C. Sherlock “This nursing home information is confusing, mindbending, and scary. Please draw us a picture to clarify.” Well, readers are right. It is all three of those things. It is meant to be so by some people in the system. Virginia has some excellent nursing homes and chains, but those are not…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Homes – Part Five – Chain Corporate Structures and the Undoing of the Regulatory Structure
by James C. Sherlock Today, we will examine a big factor in why nursing home regulation fails. It is doomed in part by the organizational structures of chains that mask a deadly lack of corporate ethics. Government regulators not only do not stop it, but are currently helpless to do so for the simplest of…
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Virginia’s Dreadful Nursing Homes – Part Four – Recommendations For 2026 Legislation
by James C. Sherlock This series is being constructed specifically to support legislation in the 2026 General Assembly. To reiterate the legislative recommendations from Part 3: Recommended legislation Consumer protection. Right now, citizens in Virginia Beach and in other communities have no defense against poor and badly staffed nursing homes that charge too much. The…
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Data Industry Giants Split on Proposed Future Rates
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed changes to how and how much it charges data centers for electricity appear to have divided the industry, based on testimony filed at the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC). The utility’s ideas are in general being supported — with some caveats — by the Office of the Attorney…
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A Solution for Effective Nursing Home Oversight
Cutting the Gordian Knot by James C. Sherlock An overarching fact often overlooked is that the for-profit nursing home industry is the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Few for-profit facilities and chains existed before the passage of those programs in 1965. Yet it is for-profit systems that overwhelmingly commit abuses. Government oversight has proven…
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The Colonial Heights Scandal – the Tip of a Very Large Iceberg
The Boys from Lakewood by James C. Sherlock Most of them are quite young. They have a lot in common. They are friends in many cases. Some grew up together. More are related through blood or marriage. Many have worked together. Some are a second generation of their families in the nursing home industry; To…
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Shell Game
by James C. Sherlock We note that the owners of Medical Facilities of America (MFA) have renamed their entire 51-facility chain “Lifeworks Rehab”. They can change it weekly if they wish. There are no rules on that front. We are left to presume it is happenstance that now none of the bad MFA headlines…
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Time to Come Clean on Clean Economy Act Costs to Customers
By Steve Haner Until October of last year, customers of Dominion Energy Virginia could see at least some of the higher costs created by the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) detailed on their electric bills. Look at the recent bill and all that transparency is gone and the VCEA costs are now hidden. Compliance with the…
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Key Energy Issues of Customer Cost, Reliability Often Ignored
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly has approved a long list of bills to reinforce its previous commitment to ending the use of hydrocarbon fuel in Virginia. It ignored warnings that natural gas is essential for energy security from the regional electricity marketplace, the Virginian who now chairs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and…