| Blum v. Yaretsky
(No. 80-1952)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ Rehnquist ] | Dissent
[ Brennan ] |
| HTML version
PDF version | HTML version
PDF version | HTML version
PDF version |
Blum v. Yaretsky
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 502 (1975). Unless these individuals
can thus demonstrate the requisite case or controversy between themselves personally and [petitioners], "none may seek relief on behalf of himself or any other member of the class." O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 494 (1974).
Ibid.
From the beginning of this lawsuit, the respondents' challenge has been to the involuntary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients from and by their nursing facilities without adequate safeguards. . . . Thus, the claim before this Court is whether state action attaches to a nursing facility's summary discharge or transfer of the patient. . . .
Brief for Respondents 21-22 (emphasis in original).
15. A completed DMS-1 form provides a summary of the patient's medical condition. Five of the eleven questions devoted to this subject require the assignment of numerical values. See 10 NYCRR App. C-1 (1978). A range of numerical values to be used in completing these questions are set forth in a second form, called the DMS-9. See ibid. The dissent's discussion of the DMS-9 suggests that completion of the DMS-1 form is a purely mechanical exercise that does not require the exercise of independent medical judgment. The dissent's discussion is incomplete. The other six questions on the DMS-1 ask the physician such questions as whether the patient requires daily supervision by a registered nurse, whether complications would arise without skilled nursing care, whether a program of therapy is necessary, and, if so, what kind, whether the patient should be considered for different levels of care, and whether the patient is medically qualified for the level of care he or she is receiving. The physician brings to bear his own medical judgment in answering these questions; their placement on the form would be inexplicable if the numerical scores were dispositive.
16. The dissent belittles this fact by noting that the decision to depart from the form in admitting a patient is made by a physician member of the nursing home's URC, and that such persons are "part and parcel of the statutory cost control process." Post at 1022. This signifies nothing more than the fact, disputed by no one, that the State requires utilization review in order to reduce unnecessary Medicaid expenditures. It remains true that physician members of the URC's are not employed by the State and, more important, render medical judgments concerning the patient's health needs that the State does not prescribe and for which it is not responsible. We must also emphasize, of course, that we are ultimately concerned with decisions to transfer patients who have already been admitted.
Apropos of this relevant issue, the dissent observes, post at 1023, that once a patient has been admitted, the State requires, as a condition to the disbursement of Medicaid funds, that, within five days after admission, the nursing home operator assess the patient's status according to standards contained in the DMS-1 and DMS-9 forms. As the dissent is also aware, post at 1023, n. 10, a physician member of the URC has the power to determine that the patient needs the level of care he is receiving despite an adverse score on the DMS-1. 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(a)(2)(i), 421.13(a)(2)(i) (1980). That decision, rendered after consultation with the patient's attending physician, is purely a medical judgment for which the State, as before, is not responsible.
17. The dissent condemns us for conducting a "cursory" review of the regulations governing utilization review, post at 1019, and pointedly asks "where . . . is the Court's discussion of the frequent utilization reviews that occur after admission?" Post at 1024. The dissent, in its headlong dive into the sea of state regulations, forgets that patient transfers to lower levels of care initiated by utilization review committees are simply not part of this case. As we noted earlier, such transfers were the subject of a consent judgment in October, 1979. We are concerned only with transfers initiated by the patients' attending physicians or the nursing home administrators themselves. Therefore, we have focused on regulations that concern decisions which are not the product of URC recommendations. As we explain in the text, those regulations do not demonstrate that the State is responsible for the transfers with which we are concerned.
18. Federal regulations also require SNF's and HRF's to obtain from admitting physicians a plan of discharge for each patient. 42 CFR § 456.280 (b)(6), 456.380(b)(6) (1981). State regulations require that nursing home staff members assist in the preparation of these plans, which are designed to summarize
the patient's potential for return to the community, for transfer to another more appropriate setting or for achieving or maintaining the best obtainable level of function in the nursing home.
10 NYCRR §§ 416.1(k)(2)(ii), 421.3(b)(2) (1976). These requirements hardly make the State responsible for actual decisions to discharge or transfer particular patients.
19. The dissent characterizes as "factually unfounded," post at 1014, our conclusion that decisions initiated by nursing homes and physicians to transfer patients to lower levels of care ultimately depend on private judgments about the health needs of the patients. It asserts that different levels of care exist only because of the State's desire to save money, and that the same interest explains the requirement that nursing homes transfer patients who do not need the care they are receiving. Post at 1014-1019. We do not suggest otherwise. Transfers to lower levels of care are not mandated by the patients' health needs. But they occur only after an assessment of those needs. In other words, although "downward" transfers are made possible and encouraged for efficiency reasons, they can occur only after the decision is made that the patient does not need the care he or she is currently receiving. The State is simply not responsible for that decision,although it clearly responds to it. In concrete terms, therefore, if a particular patient objects to his transfer to a different nursing facility, the "fault" lies not with the State, but ultimately with the judgment, made by concededly private parties, that he is receiving expensive care that he does not need. That judgment is a medical one, not a question of accounting.
20. This case, of course, does not involve the "under color of law" requirement of § 1983. Nevertheless, it is clear that the reasoning employed in Polk County is equally applicable to "state action" cases such as this one.
21. Respondents also point to statutes requiring the State periodically to send medical review teams to conduct on-site inspections of all SNF's and HRF's. During these inspections, state employees are required to review the appropriateness of each patient's continued stay in the facility and to report their findings to the nursing home and the agency responsible for administering the Medicaid program in the State. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396a(a) (26), (31), 1396b(g)(1)(D) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). See 42 CFR § 456.611 (1981). Petitioners concede that these inspections can result in a discharge or transfer directed by state health officials. As they correctly argue, however, transfers of this kind are not the subject of respondents' complaint, and none is presented by the record.
22. As a postscript to their "state action" arguments, respondents suggest that this Court avoid the issue by holding that federal and state statutes and regulations require the procedural safeguards which they seek. The lower courts did not pass on this assertion, and we decline to do so as well.
