Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has secured a $2.75 million settlement with Bear Mountain Healthcare LLC, a Connecticut-based nursing home ownership group, resolving allegations that the company knowingly and systematically understaffed its Massachusetts facilities for years — causing serious harm to residents including pressure ulcers, falls resulting in broken bones, malnutrition, dehydration, and renal failure — while its owners collected significant salaries and distributions from the same facilities.
According to the official press release from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Bear Mountain Healthcare LLC has agreed to pay $2.75 million to resolve allegations brought by the AGO’s Medicaid Fraud Division. Of that total, $1 million is designated specifically for the benefit of residents at Bear Mountain’s sole remaining facility, Timberlyn Heights in Great Barrington. Bear Mountain will also enter a three-year compliance monitoring program overseen by an independent monitor approved by the AGO for all facilities it currently operates or will operate in the future.
Bear Mountain, from 2017 through the present, owned or managed a number of skilled nursing facilities throughout Massachusetts. During the state’s intervention period, the company sold or placed in receivership nearly all of its Massachusetts facilities. As of the settlement date, only Timberlyn Heights remains under Bear Mountain’s operation.
The AGO’s investigation — initiated based on referrals from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health — found that between April 2021 and December 2025, facilities operated by Bear Mountain across 11 locations systematically failed to meet the minimum staffing levels required by state regulations. Massachusetts law requires nursing homes to provide a minimum of 3.58 nursing care hours per resident per day. Bear Mountain’s facilities repeatedly fell below this threshold.
The AGO alleged that this chronic understaffing directly caused serious resident harm, including: pressure ulcers; obstructive uropathy; obstructed foley catheters; renal failure; medication errors; malnutrition and dehydration; and falls resulting in broken bones. At the same time, the AGO alleged, Bear Mountain’s owners took significant salaries and distributions from the facilities — enriching themselves while the facilities struggled to meet minimum care standards.
AG Campbell stated: “Elders deserve to live with dignity and respect. To ensure nursing home residents receive adequate care, state law requires facilities to meet minimum staffing standards. When facilities fail to meet those requirements, my office will take action to hold them accountable and protect residents. This settlement holds Bear Mountain accountable for systematic understaffing that resulted in neglect and provides meaningful relief to properly meet residents’ needs moving forward.”
This settlement is part of a broader enforcement effort by the Massachusetts AGO. In 2024, the office secured a $4 million settlement with Next Step Healthcare — the largest nursing home settlement in AGO history at the time — resolving similar allegations of systemic understaffing and neglect. In June 2026, the AGO also announced new consumer protection regulations for assisted living residences, the first of their kind under the state’s consumer protection laws, designed to protect residents from misrepresentation of services, improper fees, and unlawful evictions.
What makes this settlement significant beyond its dollar amount is what the AGO’s investigation confirmed: that understaffing in these facilities was not accidental, not the result of workforce shortages alone, and not unknown to management — it was systematic and ongoing across 11 facilities over four years, while the company’s owners were simultaneously extracting significant personal compensation. That is the pattern advocates have documented in for-profit nursing home chains across the country: revenue going up, staffing going down, residents paying the difference in pressure ulcers, infections, falls, and preventable deaths.
The $1 million ring-fenced specifically for resident benefit at Timberlyn Heights is notable — it signals the AGO’s recognition that accountability means more than financial penalties paid to the state. It means ensuring the residents who were harmed by these conditions actually see some improvement in the care they receive going forward.
When a state attorney general’s office investigates a nursing home chain and finds that owners took large personal payouts while residents developed pressure ulcers, fell and broke bones, and went without adequate food and water — that is not a compliance failure. That is a choice. Understaffing is profitable in the short term precisely because the costs are borne by the residents, not the owners. Enforcement actions like this one are designed to change that calculus. But for the families of residents who suffered harm during the four years Bear Mountain’s facilities were below minimum staffing — harm that the AGO confirmed was real and serious — the settlement is the beginning of accountability, not the end of it.
If a family member has developed pressure sores, experienced a fall, suffered from malnutrition or dehydration, or been harmed in any way at a nursing home or skilled nursing facility, you have the right to understand what happened and to hold the facility accountable. Contact us to speak with one of our experienced attorneys about your situation and your options.
Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-campbell-secures-275-million-settlement-with-nursing-home-ownership-group-for-systematic-understaffing-resulting-in-resident-neglect
