In 2010, almost 6 million reports of elder abuse were reported, which as high as the number may sound may just be the tip of the iceberg.
The National Center on Elder Abuse is convinced this number is way below the actual amount of victims that are being abused as many times it happens behind closed doors and is not reported. If this is the case, the problem may be much more extensive than we even realize.
I was really excited to learn about a new web tool for families seeking information about a particular nursing home. Created by ProPublica, Nursing Home Inspect, is essentially a searchable database of information collected from nursing home inspection data.
The free, user-friendly database allows families to access information from nursing home surveys much easier than was possible in the past— where families would literally have to scan through tedious inspection data to find specific information that they were interested in.
While Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare was a great concept when it was released years ago, the information is still relatively general and is only a starting point for families to begin the process of learning about or selecting a facility for a loved one. Unlike the general ‘star-rating system’ that Medicare uses to rate facilities, the new database skips generic ratings in favor of more detailed information.
No one ever said that getting old was easy– for the person— or their family. As we age, our physical and psychological needs change dramatically. Understanding these changes and providing for these needs is imperative for every person to live life to its fullest.
Even with the best care, the certainty of life’s end is also something that we all must face. Coming to terms with death and the accompanying issues in an important concept for the individual and family.
Below are some carefully selected resources that relate to senior health and the complex legal and emotional issues that come about at the end of life.
In California, the never ending quest to chop money from state budgets has taken a new turn as state prison officials have initiated a new medical parole program which allows medically incapacitated felons to utilize the services of private nursing homes.
Starting in 2010, the California Correctional system placed 29 inmates— not parolees or people whom have already served their time— but real, hardened criminals— whom have suffered form some type of medical incapacity that they now require medical care; into the hands of skilled nursing facilities throughout the state.
Under a medical parole policy chronicled recently in a New York Times’ article, “When the Nursing Home Resident in the Next Room is a Convicted Criminal”, a state board determines if the patient is indeed medically incapacitated and eligible for placement at facility in the state. Once placed, the inmate is treated just like any other patient at the facility and can go about his daily activities without the supervision of any of the security detail offered in a jail.
Number of nursing homes in Illinois: 789
Patients living in Illinois nursing homes: 75,218
Occupancy rates of Illinois nursing homes: 78.6%
Yesterday I was contacted by the daughter of a nursing home patient who died after suffering a fall in the bathroom of a well-known– and highly rated– nursing home in Chicago.
After several minutes of discussion about her her father’s physical condition and her recollection of safeguards that were to be implemented by the facility to prevent falls, she then began to question if the facility really did anything wrong– in light of its fine reputation.
Sure, having a good reputation is an important thing for any business— nursing homes included– but as a patient or family member, it is important to remember that a facilities fine reputation in the past does not mean that the facility gets to automatically maintain that reputation in the future. Further, even the most highly regarded facilities are staffed by ordinary humans— who do make mistakes when it comes to patient care.
As a lawyer who sees incidents stemming from negligent care— at both –highly rated— as well as facilities that may not have such great track records, I always suggest to families that each incident should be reviewed independently of the nursing home or hospitals rating or reputation in the community as it really has little bearing on the incident at issue.
When medical mistakes are made at more esteemed facilities– nursing home and hospitals, I do see more of these facilities recognize the error for what it is and make and effort to evaluate meritorious claims with an eye towards resolution.
The bottom line is that while a nursing home’s reputation may be excellent, it should not be a deterrent when it comes to pursuing claims involving poor care– isolated incident or not.
Below is a list of Chicago-land nursing homes that deserve recognition for receiving a 5-star overall rating from Medicare.
One of the most frequent claims I hear from nursing homes and hospitals concerning pending litigation is how the lawsuits are simply isolated events and are not really indicative of the type of care that they provide to their patients.
While such claims may indeed be very true at some facilities, the reality remains that rarely do facilities have their inferior care targeted upon one patient. Rather, I tend to see patterns of poor care and mistakes scattered amongst multiple patients at a facility.
I recently read an disturbing article concerning the history of dangerous care provided to patients at Heartland of Charleston Nursing Home in West Virginia. The facility (which happens to be part of nursing home giant ManorCare) has received a good deal of negative publicity in the past few months after the family of a neglected patient received a monumental $90.5 million verdict in compensatory and punitive damages for the dehydration death of their loved one.
Compared to non-profit and government controlled peers, big-chain nursing homes simply provide inferior patient care. Period.
In one of the first studies directly comparing patient care provided by non-profits operations vs. nursing home conglomerates (the ten largest for-profit chains), an analysis conducted by University of California San Francisco (UCSF) clearly demonstrated that the facility have significantly more deficiencies that can be responsible for patients unmet medical needs and the development of serious complications such as: falls, infections, drastic weight loss and pressure sores.
According to one of the studies author’s Charlene Harrington, RD, PhD, there is no ambiguity in the studies findings:
When it comes to ensuring that nursing homes are compliant with regulations to protect patients, the enforcement of such provisions falls primarily on agencies within the state. When violations are discovered agencies have several options available to them in their arsenal including issuing a written citation that could become part of the facilities permanent record— and issuing fines.
Theoretically, imposing these sanctions would provide enough encouragement for poorly performing facilities to clean up their act. That is, unless the nursing home is located in Wisconsin.
A new bill (Assembly Bill 302) that has been passed by the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate would lessen some of the regulatory bite in the arsenal that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services has to enforce infractions discovered in nursing homes within the state.
We’ve had a lot of discussion regarding the sizable nursing home negligence verdict in West Virginia against Heartland of Charleston and the parent company HCR Manor Care. If you haven’t heard about this landmark nursing home verdict, jurors awarded $91.5 million to the family of a patient at the facility who died shortly after her admission to the facility from complications related to dehydration and pressure sores.
After unsuccessfully arguing that the verdict should be reduced based upon West Virginia’s caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, lawyers for the nursing home behemoth have now taken a position that a judge should substantially reduce the verdict or order a new trial based upon errors made during the course of the original trial.
In particular, lawyers for Manor Care claim that the company is a far less profitable organization than was alleged at trial by lawyers representing the patient’s family when seeking punitive damages.
Nursing Home Law News