Ottawa man says his mother was billed by her retirement home for services provided through the health-care system

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Published Oct 03, 2023 • Last updated 30 minutes ago • 5 minute read

Chris Monk displays a recent bill from Chartwell Rockcliffe Retirement Residence. Photo by Julie Oliver /POSTMEDIA

The organization that regulates retirement homes in Ontario says it is looking into allegations that an Ottawa woman was charged thousands of dollars by a retirement home for services being provided through the public health system.

The home apologized for what it characterized as a clerical error and the money was refunded after her son, who has power of attorney, discovered the discrepancy.

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Christopher Monk says he discovered the over-billing by accident while visiting his mother, Chantal Monk, at the Chartwell Rockcliffe Retirement Residence.

His mother, who is 93, was hospitalized last spring. After she was discharged from the hospital back to the retirement home where she lived, she needed additional care and support. Christopher Monk, who lived in British Columbia at the time, said the retirement home suggested a supplemental care package for his mother, which would cost just over $2,500 a month, in addition to around $7,000 she was already paying to live at the residence.

That supplemental care was to include help getting up in the morning and to bed at night because Chantal Monk’s mobility had declined while she was in the hospital. It would also include an escort to the dining room and medication assistance. As far as he knew, she was receiving the services they had paid for.

The cost of the residence and the supplemental care, along with fee increases expected this fall, meant Chantal Monk would be paying around $10,000 a month, said her son, something that was becoming too much for the family to afford.

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Monk, who ran an employment agency in Vancouver, said that was one reason he decided to move to Ottawa with his wife so his mother could live with them.

While talking to one of the care providers for his mother about getting extra help for her once she moved out of the retirement home, he learned the bulk of the care she was receiving was being provided through the public health system, not the retirement home.

Monk said he was stunned to learn that Home and Community Care Support Services, formerly known as the LHIN (Local Health Integration Network), was providing caregivers to assist his mother twice daily, something covered by OHIP, when she was being billed by the retirement home for care.

“I was never advised that these services had been set up by LHIN (Home and Community Care Support Services) and I was led to believe by the Rockcliffe that it was my responsibility to ensure that the Rockcliffe had these care services in place for my mother’s release from hospital,” said Monk.

Chantal Monk began receiving that care in early May. By the time her son discovered that the care was being provided by Home and Community Care Support Services, in August, she had paid thousands of dollars for services that were being provided through Ontario’s public health system twice a day, seven days a week, Monk said.

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When he approached officials from the home about the discrepancy, Monk says, they seemed surprised and said they were not aware she had been receiving services from the LHIN (Community Care Support Services), Monk said.

Chris Monk, right, seen here with partner Romina Taheri, holds a bill from Chartwell Rockcliffe Retirement Residence. Photo by Julie Oliver /Postmedia

A spokesperson for Chartwell, which owns and operates more than 200 retirement homes in Canada and the United States, called it an isolated incident and the result of a clerical error.

“Once we were informed of this, local management corrected the error immediately and issued a full refund to the resident’s account,” senior director of communications Mary Perrone Lisi said.

“We apologize to the resident and their family for this clerical error and we can confirm this was an isolated incident and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

She also said residents “have the right to participate in care planning and decisions, and the right to choose to receive care services from Chartwell or to choose an external care provider, including Home and Community Care and Support Service providers. Residents can change service providers at any time. Regretfully, there was a billing error for care services provided by Chartwell after a different care provider was chosen.”

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Monk said he continued to have questions about how it happened.

Although the retirement home’s director of care told him she only became aware of the situation in August, Monk said he was told by the LHIN’s care coordinator that she had met with the home’s director of care in both June and July to discuss care services being provided to Rockcliffe residents, which would include his mother.

Monk’s mother did receive some supplementary services from the retirement home, including escort assistance to the dining room. But Monk said his mother generally walked on her own and refused extra help. He questioned why she was being charged for that.

Of about $2,500 a month being billed by the home for supplemental care over nearly four months, Monk says about $1,900 should not have been billed because services were being provided by Community Care and Support Services.

His key concern was that the over-billing only stopped because he found out about it.

“Were it not for the fact that I moved back to Ottawa and inquired about LHIN services, this would have slid under the radar.”

He said there were numerous indications that the retirement home should have been aware of the situation — including communication with the LHIN (Community Care Support Services), monthly meetings about care being provided to residents of the home, and the fact that caregivers with the LHIN had to sign in at the retirement residence when they came twice a day to provide care to his mother.

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“What more could have happened to make them aware they were charging for services they weren’t delivering?”

Monk said he wondered whether the same thing had happened to others.

He filed a complaint with the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA), which regulates retirement homes in Ontario.

Communications manager Phil Norris said the authority “is aware of this matter and is actively looking into it through our inspections process.”

He added that RHRA “thoroughly reviews any information it obtains to determine whether licensees are complying the Retirement Homes Act and if not, what the appropriate next steps are.”

The authority can issue warning letters, compliance orders and “administrative penalties” if licensees are not compliant.

Under the provincial Retirement Homes Act, he said, licensees must operate the home with honesty and integrity as a condition of being issued a licence by RHRA.

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