A nurse uses sign language with older man while seated on a couch.
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A former operator of 38 skilled nursing facilities accused of not supplying sign language interpretation for a deaf resident will shell out more than a quarter of a billion dollars to settle the allegations.

The $300,000 settlement agreement between LTC Holdings Inc. and the Department of Justice was announced Monday by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

LTC Holdings was accused of not providing American Sign Language services for a deaf resident who lived at a Virginia-based facility for 67 days, which is prohibited under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Under the agreement, LTC agreed to pay the deaf individual $225,000 and pay a $75,000 civil penalty to the federal government. The company also voluntarily changed its policies and procedures, and provided ADA training to its workers prior to selling its nursing facilities. 

LTC, which previously operated Medical Facilities of America, agreed to sell more than 30 nursing homes with about 4,000 beds to Innovated Healthcare Management in the spring of this year.

A request for comment by McKnight’s to the Medical Facilities of America was not returned by the production deadline.

Additional actions

Multiple senior living operators in Michigan currently are facing civil rights accommodation lawsuits for allegedly discriminating against prospective and current residents with hearing issues by failing to provide sign language interpreters for them.

And those lawsuits aren’t the only ones to have been filed against senior living operators for not offering sign language interpreters. Earlier this year, a $162,500 settlement was announced with a provider under similar circumstances. That company had been part of a larger National Fair Housing Alliance effort against 16 senior living communities.

In 2018, three companies that operated more than two dozen assisted living and skilled nursing facilities in New York agreed to pay a total of $245,675 to settle a 2015 federal lawsuit that accused them of housing discrimination against deaf and hard-of-hearing residents and prospective residents.

Another 2018 lawsuit accused 14 Arizona senior living communities of discriminating against prospective residents who are deaf, based on undercover interactions with testers recruited by a fair housing organization.

Similar lawsuits against operators were settled in 2017 for $162,500 for $162,500 and in $185,000 for 2016.

Additional reporting by Kimberly Bonvissuto and Lois A. Bowers