who's actually running the home

Assisted living homes are housing, plain and simple. For Alaskans who can't live on their own, a licensed home is the roof over their head, and Medicaid is usually what pays for that roof.

That's why this week's news matters beyond the courtroom. A grand jury charged the operators of three Anchorage group homes with billing Medicaid almost fifteen million dollars over five years. State law says a home like this must have an approved program administrator to bill at all. Prosecutors say theirs left in 2019 and the billing just kept going, for services that allegedly weren't provided, were understaffed, or were barely documented.

When a care home cuts corners, it isn't paperwork that suffers. It's the people whose bedroom is down that hallway.

So here's the piece worth keeping, whatever happens with this case. Every licensed home in Alaska is required to have that approved administrator. If you're choosing a home for someone you love, that's a question you get to ask on day one. Who runs this home, and does the state have them on file?

To be clear, these are charges, not convictions, and everyone involved will get their day in court. We'll follow where it goes. Because housing for our most vulnerable neighbors only works when somebody's actually watching.