Nursing Home Abuse Lawsuit News
Nursing Home Violations Found to be Common
A recent report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has found that nearly all nursing homes in the U.S. have received citations for health and safety violations in 2007. Led by Daniel Levinson, the inspector general of DHHS, federal investigators inspected and evaluated complaints from the nation's 15,000 nursing homes.
Of these facilities, roughly 67 percent are "for-profit" homes, 27 percent are nonprofit companies and 6 percent are owned by the government.
The results of this nationwide inspection found that 94 percent of for-profit facilities and 88 percent of nonprofit organizations received citations for non-compliance last year.
Details of This Reports Findings
In addition to calculating the percentage of homes violating federal standards, this investigation also looked into the amounts and types of violations occurring at particular homes.
These analyses found that:
• On average, 8 violations occurred at each non-compliant for-profit facility in 2007.
• About 6 violations occurred at each non-compliant nonprofit and government home in 2007.
In most cases, violations cited by federal inspectors consisted of any combination of:
• Infected bed sores
• Malnutrition
• Medication mishaps
• Patient abuse (either psychological or physical)
• Patient neglect
DHHS investigators contend that lack of adequately trained nursing home staff is primarily responsible for such rampant and disturbing nursing home violations. This contention is supported by the fact that independent researchers have found that having a higher ratio of staff to patients typically results in better care for the patients.
Medicare Violations at Nursing Homes
Along with finding such inhumane abuses, the DHHS report also uncovered the fact that some nursing homes were guilty of stealing funds from Medicare and Medicaid – as the facilities were billing these programs for services they didn't provide or provided extremely deficiently.
Solutions: A Nursing Home Rating System
To combat these abuses, the Bush administration will adopt a five-star nursing home rating system in December 2008. Five stars will be reserved for facilities with the highest quality of care.
The intention of these nursing home ratings is to bring public scrutiny and change to sub-par facilities while also informing the public about reliable, high quality homes.
(Source: NY Times)
Do you know someone victimized by nursing home abuse? If so, contact us today for legal advice and resources that will help the victim win much deserved and needed compensation.
Additional Nursing Home Abuse Articles:
April 27, 2007
Illinois Nursing Home Sued by Resident’s Family
February 7, 2007,
Two Florida nurses have been jailed on multiple charges of abuse and neglect after failing to administer to nursing home residents their required medication. March 16, 2005,
"Largest private nursing home fined for failing to report abuse"
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