\tViewing this story in our app?\t\tClick here\t\tfor a better experience on our website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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When elderly Miamians are removed from their homes by social service workers assigned to safeguard their welfare, they are usually strapped into an ambulance for a trip to Larkin Community Hospital, which was at the center of two Justice Department investigations into kickback schemes involving admission of patients for unnecessary treatments.<\/p>\n
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The Florida Department of Children and Families\u2019 reliance on Larkin means elders bypass neighborhood medical centers on a detour to hospitals in Hialeah and South Miami, where patients were pawns in what the FBI described as a $1 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest ever.<\/p>\n
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Aron Williams, a retired cosmetologist with dementia, got swept up in the DCF-Larkin relationship when she was sent from her home in North Dade to the South Miami hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with schizophrenia \u2014 a condition that usually manifests in adolescence or young adulthood \u2014 at age 84.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI felt as though I was violated. I felt as though my mother was violated,\u201d said Williams\u2019 daughter, Brenda Broadnax. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t treated like a human. She was treated like an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Williams was moved from Larkin to the Villa Rosa assisted living facility in Hialeah without her daughter\u2019s knowledge by Miami-Dade DCF Adult Protective Services placement specialist Tania Hernandez, Broadnax said. Hernandez has been investigated by her own agency, but never found at fault, for steering elders in state custody to a select group of assisted living facilities via Larkin.<\/p>\n
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Colleagues accused Hernandez of accepting kickbacks from ALFs \u2014 many with records of poor care \u2014 eager to fill beds with clients whose bills are subsidized by taxpayers. Hernandez, a 38-year employee of DCF, was cleared of any wrongdoing in five investigations.<\/p>\n
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Geoffrey D. Smith, an attorney for the hospitals, told the Miami Herald the same investigation that cleared Hernandez also identified no wrongdoing on the part of Larkin or any of its staff. \u201cThere is no financial incentive or other benefit to Larkin for cooperating with DCF in providing medical examinations for the safe discharge and placement of vulnerable adults into care facilities,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLarkin Health System has no knowledge of any improper conduct by any of its officers, management staff or employees, and requires that all employees or representatives adhere to the highest standards for ethics and integrity,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
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DCF\u2019s heavy reliance on Larkin so disturbed a court-appointed lawyer who has represented scores of elders and disabled adults taken into state custody that he complained to the Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s Office, a Miami judge and DCF\u2019s Inspector General that something \u201cinappropriate\u201d was happening. The judge and prosecutor, who are not named in DCF records, declined to act.<\/p>\n
[–><\/p>\n [–>[–><\/p>\n \u201cI was very concerned my clients were being somehow abused,\u201d attorney Harrison Griffis told the Inspector General. \u201cTheir civil rights were being exploited \u2014 sending them away from their support network, sending them away from their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Seniors who lived \u201cas far south as Homestead were transported past several local hospitals to Larkin Community Hospital in South Miami,\u201d an ambulance ride of about 27 miles, Griffis said.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cI had two cases that I just did where they were literally across the street from Hialeah Hospital\u201d and were taken instead to Larkin, he said.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Griffis analyzed 34 removal cases assigned to him. In 26, Larkin was the magnet.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cAlmost every single client has been filtered through Larkin Hospital,\u201d he testified as part of an Inspector General probe. Larkin caseworkers told him \u201cwe only deal with Tania,\u201d and she decides where they\u2019ll live. \u201cOn some occasions, the decision has been made without anyone asking the (client) or their family for a placement choice.\u201d<\/p>\n [–>[–><\/p>\n [–>[–><\/p>\n Other social welfare programs have safety valves to protect weak, incapacitated or disabled clients from being exploited by people in power. Florida\u2019s adult protection program lacks such guardrails.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n The state\u2019s involuntary commitment law generally requires that Floridians in mental-health crisis be taken to the \u201cnearest receiving facility.\u201d The law was designed to discourage hospitals from milking the Baker Act to fill beds \u2014 but also to keep psychiatric patients in their own neighborhoods, where they fare better. But there is no such law protecting elders. \u201cThey\u2019re being taken away from their families and their friends and their support networks,\u201d Griffis testified.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Griffis declined to speak with the Miami Herald about the concerns that he expressed to DCF\u2019s Inspector General.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Given its history, Larkin might seem a puzzling choice to partner with a state agency charged with protecting elders who cannot care for themselves.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Larkin, based in South Miami, and its former owner and CEO, Dr. Jack Michel \u2014 he now works there as an educational administrator \u2014 had a long relationship with now-convicted healthcare mogul Philip Esformes. In 2006, Michel, Esformes, Esformes\u2019 father and the hospital\u2019s previous owner paid $15.4 million without admitting guilt to settle a healthcare-fraud lawsuit in which the federal government alleged that Michel received kickbacks in return for patient admissions to Larkin. The suit also accused Michel, Esformes and others of admitting elderly patients from ALFs owned by Michel and Esformes to Larkin for medically unnecessary treatment paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Michel now oversees Larkin\u2019s graduate medical educational programs and is chairman of Larkin University, which is governed separately from the hospital, said Smith, the hospital\u2019s attorney. Smith said neither Michel nor the university play any role in the placement of elders in state custody.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n In 2019, Esformes was found guilty in a separate case and sentenced to 20 years in prison for running what the U.S. Justice Department called the largest healthcare-fraud scheme ever prosecuted. Prosecutors said he cycled patients through his nursing homes and assisted living facilities despite \u201cpoor conditions\u201d and \u201cinadequate care\u201d and personally netted more than $37 million.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Authorities called Esformes a \u201cvampire\u201d who was \u201cdriven by almost unbounded greed.\u201d A key conspirator, a Larkin administrator who processed Medicare patients for cash, pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. In 2024, Esformes pleaded guilty to another fraud count, four years after President Donald Trump commuted his sentence and freed him from prison.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n DCF supervisors explained their preference for Larkin in testimony during an investigation of Hernandez: Larkin\u2019s administrators were willing to hold onto DCF\u2019s patients long enough to ensure a full evaluation.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Hernandez and several other state employees told an investigator they were looking out for the wellbeing of at-risk elders, who were released too quickly by some hospitals back to hazardous conditions at home when they should have remained under doctors\u2019 care.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cWe had many cases where [an Adult Protective Services investigator] “They’re going to spend hours in their homes, working with police and ambulances, and arguing with their clients so they can get them out,” Hernandez said. Within 24 hours, they will be returned to a hazardous environment. \u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Smith, Larkin\u2019s attorney, said DCF clients remain at the hospital only until their medical and treatment needs have been met, and doctors have ordered their release. \u201cLarkin does not discharge these vulnerable adults until the DCF caseworker has found placement,\u201d often providing medical care without reimbursement, Smith said. He added that the hospital sends \u201cDCF clients to the placement determined by [the] I am a DCF caseworker. \u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And though Smith would not discuss Aron Williams\u2019 treatment at the hospital, citing federal medical privacy laws, he said \u201cLarkin is not aware of any finding of any deficiency in the care\u201d rendered to Williams. He added: \u201cLarkin would note that its physicians are board certified and that they use their professional medical judgment to treat all patients based on their presentation and symptomatology.\u201d<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Griffis said in his interview with the Inspector General that the Larkin hospitalizations, with doctors deciding his clients were \u201cunsafe to discharge home,\u201d made it more likely that they would lose their independence.<\/p>\n [–>[–><\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Williams was living independently three years ago when she boarded a bus at a familiar Northwest 79th Street stop but could not remember where to exit.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cIt scared me so bad,\u201d said Williams\u2019 daughter, Broadnax.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Broadnax wanted her mother to get a mental-health evaluation with doctors she chose at Aventura Hospital, but she said a state caseworker told her to send Williams to Larkin Hospital in South Miami instead. At Larkin, Williams was diagnosed not with worsening dementia but with schizophrenia, whose onset usually occurs in the late teens or early 20s.<\/p>\n [–>[–><\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Williams had worked her entire life, first as a dorm mother at Florida A&M University and later as a cosmetologist. She raised seven children as a single mother. She\u2019d never been diagnosed with a mental illness, her daughter said.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cWhen the doctor informed me, \u2018Your mother has schizophrenia,\u2019 I said, \u2018That\u2019s impossible,\u2019 \u201d Broadnax said.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Williams\u2019 medical records, which Broadnax provided to the Herald, largely confirm the daughter\u2019s account. Records from visits with Williams\u2019 primary care provider in May and July 2022 show Williams was being treated for depression and Alzheimer\u2019s dementia, with the goal of slowing \u201cthe progression of dementia-related impairments and to control behavioral symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n When Williams was admitted to Larkin that October, records show she showed signs of \u201csevere dementia,\u201d including incoherent speech. Broadnax told hospital staff her mother had a \u201chistory of depression and dementia.\u201d The hospital record, though, showed \u201cschizophrenia\u201d under past medical history.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n If Larkin doctors believed Williams had schizophrenia, her records show they did not change her medication to treat it. Three days after Williams was admitted, the medical record shows, the plan was to \u201ccontinue [her] “Home Remedies” included only two medications for Alzheimer’s disease and one for depression.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The schizophrenia diagnosis had consequences. The Coral Gables ALF that Broadnax and a state caseworker had picked for Williams reneged on admitting a patient with a severe mental illness, Broadnax said.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Williams\u2019 psychiatrists at Larkin wrote that Oct. 13 that Williams would require a \u201cproxy for all future health decisions during psychiatric hospitalization.\u201d But Broadnax, her daughter who has power of attorney, said she found out only after the fact that Williams had been admitted to an elder care home.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Hernandez arranged for Williams to be placed at Villa Rosa, her daughter said. The home was one of Hernandez\u2019s preferred spots, state records show. Hernandez moved Williams after assurances that they would discuss ALF options before a decision was made.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n When Broadnax discovered her mother had been whisked from Larkin to Hialeah, she retrieved Williams from Villa Rosa and drove her to Aventura Hospital, where doctors once again reported only \u201ca past history of Alzheimer\u2019s dementia and major depressive disorder\u201d leading to self-neglect and a failure to follow through with medication.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n Williams \u2014 who had been living independently in the same apartment building as Broadnax with in-home care \u2014 died on Dec. 15, 2024, of pneumonia.<\/p>\n [–><\/p>\n \u201cThey are aware that I have power of attorney,\u201d Broadnax said. \u201cNo one from Larkin, no one from Children and Families ever called and said, \u2018We\u2019re going to transfer your mother.\u2019 I did not give them permission to transfer. They didn\u2019t have that right. Not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This story was first published April 2, 2026, 5:30am.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\n #Miami #Hospital #troubled #history #DCFs #goto #medical #center #seniors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [–> Viewing this story in our app? Click here for a better experience on our website. [–> When elderly Miamians are removed from their homes by social service workers assigned to safeguard their welfare, they are usually strapped into an ambulance for a trip to Larkin Community Hospital, which was at the center of two … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,491],"tags":[1199,2305,1249,934,733,558,2304,1622,1297],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-health-care","tag-center","tag-dcfs","tag-goto","tag-history","tag-hospital","tag-medical","tag-miami","tag-seniors","tag-troubled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picsura.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"DCF](\"https:\/\/picsura.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775467054_216_Miami-Hospital-with-a-troubled-history-is-DCFs-go-to-medical.JPG\" "\\"MIA_5_Elders_Project_MJO.JPG\\"")
ARON WILLIAMS GOES TO LARKIN<\/h3>\n
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