Hatch was active in protecting vulnerable patients in care facilities from abuse. In March 2000 he filed a lawsuit against Alterra, a Wisconsin-based assisted living facility, for misrepresenting that it was qualified to take care of memory-impaired patients. The suit was featured in a "Time" magazine article about abuses at assisted-living facilities. Alterra charged patients up to $4,000 per month, but family members reported patients with Alzheimer's lying in their own feces and urine-soaked garments for hours, and local police frequently discovered dementia patients wandering the streets in the cold. Hatch noted at the time that assisted-living facilities were "essentially unregulated nursing homes," and called for them to be licensed. The state legislature did not act on his proposal, and in 2017 the "Star Tribune" ran a multi-part investigative special report exposing abuses of patients in such facilities. One of the major legislative proposals following the "Star Tribune" exposé was that the state license assisted-living facilities.