Windsor Palms Care Center of Artesia Abuse and Neglect Lawyers

When you move your loved one into a nursing home, you hope and expect that they get the care that they need to make them comfortable and assist with their daily activities. When a nursing home racks up numerous fines and regulatory violations, there is a high likelihood that its residents are suffering. If your loved one is one of these residents, call the attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center to see if you can file a lawsuit against the nursing home.

Windsor Palms Care Center of Artesia

This nursing home is a 296 bed for-profit facility that offers short and long-stay care to residents of the Greater Los Angeles area. The Medicare/Medicaid approved facility is located at:

11900 Artesia Blvd
Artesia, CA 90701
(562) 865-0271
Windsor Palms Care Center of Artesia

California nursing homes are subject to both state and federal regulation. While federal inspections are to ensure compliance with the laws governing the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the state regulators enforce the licensing requirements. In California, this means that nursing homes must follow what is an extensive set of laws governing the level of care in nursing homes. California tends to take enforcement actions against its nursing homes far more than other state regulators. In addition, California nursing home are more likely to face class action lawsuits than are nursing homes in other states. The nursing homes undergo annual federal inspections and receive frequent visits from the state inspectors too.

Windsor Palms Care Center of Artesia has been fined four times in the past three years. In addition, it has had two different payment denials from Medicare for ongoing uncorrected violations that have restricted its ability to be reimbursed for new patients.

While this nursing home did not receive a one-star rating for quality of resident care, it did have a drastically higher than average rate of hospitalization for its residents. The national average is 1.75 hospital stays for every 1,000 resident days at the facility. Windsor Palms had a rate of 3.52 hospital stays for 1,000 resident days. Medicare has recently instituted a new program whereby nursing homes are docked up to two percent of their reimbursements for high rates of hospitalizations.

Windsor Palms received a $42,000 fine from the federal government in September 2018. This was its third fine of the calendar year. The nursing home failed to undertake the proper pain management procedures for a resident. Specifically, they did not use the standard pain rating scale to assess the resident’s pain, when their condition had the potential to cause severe pain. As a result, the resident suffered greatly.

The federal fines pale in comparison to the fines levied on the facility by the State of California. Windsor Palms was fined a total of six times by the state in 2018. One of the fines was for $20,000, but California has the ability to triple the fines based on the egregiousness of the violation. In this case, the facility failed to follow a fall prevention plan for a resident who was a risk of falls. The resident had a history of falls, but the facility did not update the fall prevention plan accordingly, nor did it provide the proper assessments. The resident fell and suffered a severe head laceration.

The most recent fine was issued in November 2018. There was a report to the Department of Health that the nursing home was drugging residents. Inspectors performed opiate tests on residents and found that one resident tested positive for opiates without the proper authorizations and orders. This was the second time that the resident tested positive for opiates, yet the test results were not reported.

In all, there have been eight separate complaint inspections in 2018 that resulted in health citations. The facility also received a one-star rating in the area of staffing, which is the lowest possible rating. Where Windsor Palms fell short in this area was in RN staffing. This facility had only 14 minutes of RN time per day for each resident, which is roughly a third of the national average. Understaffing a facility leads to deficiencies of care as residents experience health issues that are overlooked by overworked staff. Many nursing homes consciously cut back on staff to inflate profits, although California enforces a minimum staffing amount for its nursing homes. Nevertheless, nursing homes may still understaff certain disciplines that have a higher cost for each employee. Windsor Palms is a large facility with nearly 300 residents, so having a sufficient number of staff is critical.

If your loved one has been a resident at Windsor Palms and has suffered in any way due to incidents like the ones described above or anything else, your family may be eligible for financial compensation. The attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center can help fight for the justice that your family deserves if your loved one has been mistreated. You may even have a cause of action if your family member is no longer alive. Contact us today or call at (800) 926-7565 or reach out to us online to schedule your no-risk free case consultation. If the facts support it, this can start the process of filing a claim against the nursing home that failed to properly care for your loved on.