Nursing homes, assisted living centers, and rehabilitation facilities have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that every resident receives the highest level of care established standards. Unfortunately, not every facility follows procedures and protocols to prevent accidents that lead to serious, life-threatening issues or premature death.
If you believe your loved one was victimized through neglect, abuse or mistreatment while residing in a Cook County nursing center, contact the Illinois Nursing Home Law Center attorneys. Our team of lawyers has successfully resolved many cases just like yours, and we can help your family too. Contact us now so we can begin working on your case today.
If your loved one has been mistreated at Beacon Health Center, contact our Chicago nursing home lawyers.
This Medicare/Medicaid-participating long-term care (LTC) center is a 143-certified bed "for profit" home providing services to residents of Chicago and Cook County, Illinois. The facility is located at:
4538 North BeaconIn addition to providing around-the-clock skilled nursing care and clinical care, Beacon Health Center also offers subacute rehabilitation.
Chicago, Illinois, 60640
(773) 275-7200
Illinois and federal agencies are duty-bound to monitor every nursing home and levy monetary fines or deny payments through Medicare when investigators identify serious violations of nursing home regulations and rules. In some cases, the nursing home receives multiple penalties if surveyors find severe violations that harmed or could have harmed a resident.
Within the last three years, investigators have not levied fines or denied Medicare service payments against Beacon Health Center. However, the facility did receive twenty-nine formally filed complaints and self-reported one serious issue that all resulted in citations. Additional documentation about fines and penalties can be found on the Illinois Department of Public Health Nursing Home Reporting Website concerning this nursing facility.
The state of Illinois regularly updates their long-term care home database system with complete details of all filed complaints, dangerous hazards, health violations, safety concerns, incident inquiries, and opened investigations. The search results can be found on numerous online sites including the IL Department of Public Health and Medicare.gov.
According to Medicare, this facility maintains an overall rating of one out of five stars, including one out of five stars concerning health inspections, two out of five stars for staffing issues and one out of five stars for quality measures. The Cook County neglect attorneys at Nursing Home Law Center have found serious deficiencies and safety concerns at Beacon Health Center that include:
In a summary statement of deficiencies dated August 17, 2018, the state investigators documented that the facility “neglected to implement the Suspected Substance Abuse Care Plan after testing positive for opiates and neglected to follow their Outside Pass Privilege Policy by not revising and restricting outside pass privileges after testing positive for opiates.” The deficient practice by the nursing staff involved “one resident reviewed for substance abuse.”
The state surveyors noted that this failure resulted in the resident “being allowed to independently access the community and was found lying outside on the sidewalk [on July 25, 2018] unresponsive and being pronounced dead by the local paramedics.” The resident’s death certificate documents that the cause of death was in part caused by medication toxicity.
The survey team reviewed the resident’s medical records and physician’s orders that revealed the resident “has an unsupervised open pass to the community by [the Medical Doctor].” The Community Survival Skills Assessment shows that the resident “appears capable of unsupervised outside passes.” The document shows that the resident “to sufficiently follows the rules addressing medication compliance, participation in [their] treatment plan, appropriate hygiene and grooming and treats others with respect.”
As a part of the investigation, the surveyors interviewed the Director of Nursing and Assistant Administrator who stated that the Community Survival Skills Assessment is based on the resident’s MDS (Minimum Data Set) “seven-day look-back period.” The document was dated June 1 through June 6 of 2018 showing that the resident “was complying during this period.” However, the staff said that the assessment was not a true assessment of behavior during the entire quarter.
A review of June 3, 2018, Progress Notes documents that the resident “missed his blood sugar test at 11:30 AM and missed his 5:00 PM medications and blood sugar test due to remaining out on a pass.” The surveyor asked, “why a more precise drug screen was not ordered for [the resident] when there was a suspicion of substance abuse?"
The facility Administrator responded that it was because that this “is what the doctor ordered.” The Administrator said that “the Substance Abuse Care Plan was initiated because of the May 6, 2018 incident, we did not suspect substance abuse before that, and there was no history.”
The Administrator said that the resident “left the facility around 8:00 AM on July 24, 2018” signing out in the “log book.” The Administrator “got a call from the police on the morning of July 25, 2018, saying they found [the resident] on Lawrence Street, unresponsive. The paramedics pronounced him dead.”
The Administrator said that “it did not appear to have been from foul play.” The Administrator said that the resident “signed out but did not put a time returning in the log book.” During a telephone interview with the surveyors, the Administrator said that when the resident did “not return at curfew, 10:00 PM, [the facility staff] called his cell phone and did not get an answer.” It was then that the facility “called the family and left a message [saying], we did not call the police.”
During an interview with the Social Services Director, it was stated that “the residents are supposed to be back in the building by 10:00 PM. If they are not, they have to call the Nurse on Duty. There have been a few encounters where we educated and counseled [the resident] on refusing care meds and treatment.” The resident “was able to make his own decisions and had the right to refuse meds and treatment; we cannot control that. The only intervention we use for [the resident] was re-education. We did not do a behavioral contract. We had never suspended pass privileges for [the resident]. The only intervention we used was counseling and education. We suggested a group for [the resident], but he refused to attend.”
The Social Services Director said that the resident’s drug test showed positive and that they were “informed of his suspected drug use on July 6, 2018.” The Director said that since they had worked at the facility, they had not suspected the resident of drug abuse.
The Director said that the resident “has some resistance to wound care, he was getting better after education. Our policy for pass privilege is that the first offense is education and counseling, but no suspension of pass privilege. The second offense, we restrict pass privileges.” The resident “was here for rehab, and medication management [and] has never had a suspension of pass privileges.
The surveyors reviewed the facility’s policy titled: Outside Pass Policy dated August 2017 that reads in part:
“Consequences of Noncompliance: Person to receive an outside Pass and engage in noncompliant behavior, including but not limited to, substance use/abuse, bringing contraband into the facility, criminal behavior, behaviors that constitute a public nuisance or danger and aggressive, inappropriate behavior.”
“Administration, the Physician or Social Service Director will evaluate the individual’s behavior and consider revoking outside pass privileges. Once revoked, the following consequences apply: First revocation – two weeks of pass suspension. Second revocation – one-month pass suspension.”
In a summary statement of deficiencies dated August 17, 2018, the state survey team noted that the nursing home had failed to “follow physician’s orders by not administering [pain medication] for six days when the physician’s orders documented administration every seventy-two hours.” The deficient practice by the nursing staff involved one resident taking controlled substances.
A review of the resident’s Control Substance Proof of Use Document shows that the resident received their pain medication patch at 6:00 AM on July 26, 2018. However, the next patch was not applied until August 3, 2018, at 10:00 AM.
The survey team interviewed a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) who stated that the resident’s medication “came to the floor (delivered from the pharmacy) on August 2, 2018. It's due every three days at 6:00 AM.” The LPN said that the resident “should have had [the drug] on July 29, 2018, and August 1, 2018.”
The LPN said that they “got a paper script from the doctor on July 29, 2018.” The Licensed Practical Nurse stated that “the night nurse orders [the medication], but I ordered it because I saw [that it] was missing.”
As a part of the investigation, the surveyors spoke with the Assistant Director of Nursing. The Assistant Director said that “the night shift nurses spoke to [the resident’s] physician on July 26, 2018 and was told he would be in the facility in one to two days to write [the pain medication] prescription. The doctor did not come until July 29, 2018. The script (prescription) was incorrect.”
The Assistant Director said that the LPN “call the pharmacy on August 1, 2018 and was told the prescription was incorrect. The physician wrote a corrected prescription on August 1, 2018, and the medication was delivered on April 2, 2018.” The medication was then administered “on August 3, 2018.”
The Assistant Director said that “the nurse should have called the physician when the medication came in and requested an order to give [that drug] then instead of waiting until the next day. Normally, ordering the [medication] the same day, it runs out and would be okay because it is applied every three days, but in this incident, there was a mistake by the physician.”
The investigators interviewed the resident on August 7, 2018, who said “I requested my [pain drug] and was told I was out of medication. I went for a week without the patch. I know I was going through withdrawal. I had a racing heart, anxiety, increased pain, flu-like symptoms (body aches).”
In a summary statement of deficiencies dated December 30, 2016, the state investigators documented that the facility had failed to “use a gait belt when manually transferring two residents observed manually transferred.” The investigators also said the nursing home “failed to use implement fall interventions for [a resident] and failed to provide follow through on an injured hand for [another resident].”
It was determined that these failures affected four residents “reviewed for falls or supervision.” In one incident occurring at 8:54 AM on December 29, 2016, two Certified Nursing Aides in a resident’s room transferred the resident “without the use of a gait belt.” Both CNAs grabbed underneath the resident’s “arms and grabbed at the back of [the resident’s] pants and pulled her off the bed into a wheelchair. [The resident] was not bearing weight on her feet, and her legs were bent at the knees.”
Less than an hour later at 9:50 AM, two Certified Nursing Aides transferred a different resident “from the bed to a wheelchair without the use of a gait belt.” Both CNAs “grabbed underneath [the resident’s] arms and pulled her pants off of the bed and on to the wheelchair.” The resident “was not weight-bearing on her feet, and her legs were bent at the knees.”
The surveyors reviewed the facility’s policy that documents “manual lifting of residents shall be eliminated when feasible. Nursing staff, in conjunction with rehabilitation staff, shall assess the individual resident's needs for transfer assistance on an on-going basis. Staff will document transferring needs and lifting needs in the Care Plan. This is not followed per Care Plan review. This is the policy presented on manual transfers. It does not go into the use of gait belts.”
If you suspect your loved one has had any sign or symptom of abuse, mistreatment or neglect while a resident at Beacon Health Center, it is crucial to contact the Illinois nursing home abuse lawyers at Nursing Home Law Center at (800) 926-7565 immediately for legal help. Our network of attorneys fights aggressively on behalf of Cook County victims of mistreatment living in long-term facilities including nursing homes in Chicago. Contact us now to schedule a free case review to discuss how to obtain justice and resolve a financial compensation claim.
Our skillful attorneys provide legal representation in victim cases involving nursing home abuse when it occurs in private and public nursing facilities. We accept all nursing home abuse lawsuits, personal injury claims, medical malpractice cases, and wrongful death suits through a contingency fee agreement. This arrangement postpones making upfront payments for our legal services until after we have successfully resolved your compensation claim through a negotiated settlement or jury trial award.
We provide each client a “No Win/No-Fee” Guarantee, meaning you owe us nothing if we cannot obtain compensation for your damages. We can begin working on your case today to ensure your family receives monetary recovery for your damages. All information you share with our law offices will remain confidential.
Attorney Jonathan Rosenfeld
Licensed in Illinois
Chicago Nursing Home Injury Attorney Nursing Home Law Center LLC Home