At some point, it may become time to move your loved one into a nursing home. You want to make sure they are cared for properly, so you start learning everything you can about each facility to find the right one.
Knowing how common nursing home abuse is can be scary, especially since it’s extremely difficult to predict how a home will treat your loved one. However, there are a few tools that you can utilize to help this process easier.
Choosing the Right Home
When choosing the right home for your loved one, you want to know some important details about the facility—how the staff treats residents, what the ratio is between the number of staff members and residents, how often residents are sent to the hospital, and the like.
In order to gather this information, you can utilize:
The nursing home’s own website
The nursing home’s social media pages
Google reviews
Yelp reviews
Word-of-mouth from current residents
The experience of current and past residents can be a telltale sign of how your own loved one may be treated at a specific nursing home. However, it’s important to also keep in mind that elder abuse can still take place at a facility with spotless ratings and near-perfect recommendations.
Reviewing the Medicare Rating
All nursing homes that are Medicare or Medicaid-certified will receive a Medicare rating, a five-star system that is based on four categories:
Quality Measures - including the number of patients who have been admitted to the hospital, who receive antipsychotic drugs to deal with behaviors, who have ulcers or bedsores, or whose ability to move has worsened since their move-in date
Staffing - including how many registered nurses (RNs) are on duty each day per resident; how many hours of nursing care is provided to each resident by an RN, licensed practical nurse (LPN), or nursing assistant
Health Inspections - based on the three most recent annual inspection surveys that take into account staffing numbers, patient medication distribution, whether food is stored and prepared properly, what interaction between residents and staff look like
Overall Rating - the stars from the health inspection are used as a starting point; one star is added if the staffing rating is four or five stars and higher than the health inspection rating; another star is added if quality measures are five stars and a star can be taken away if quality measures are only one star
You can find and compare nursing home ratings on the Medicare official website.
Giving a Voice to Abuse Victims
Ultimately, it’s important to always trust your instincts. If something is telling you that a certain nursing home is “off” or if your loved one starts showing signs of nursing home abuse and neglect, listen to those feelings.
You don’t want to take any chances, especially when it comes to the health, safety, and emotional wellbeing of your loved one. If you do to suspect or learn that your loved one is being abused or neglected at their nursing home, Kornfeld Law is here to give a voice to your family in these trying times.
Contact Kornfeld Law at (425) 657-5255 to discuss your legal options.