Fox News recently ran a national news article highlighting a Cincinnati-area nursing home which was recently placed on a Federal Watch List.
As stated in the article, a Cincinnati nursing home has been placed on a watch list after inspections that found several issues, including an instance of sexual abuse of an older patient. Over 130 nursing homes in the country are being targeted because of problems that have occurred within their facilities. Within the article, it is mentioned that "homes get on the list after a high number of deficiencies over an extended period". In this particular case, a male patient had sexually abused a female patient; both parties were suffering from dementia. Allegedly, the man had found an access code to the women's section and sexually abused a female patient. Other problems with the facility included a lack of RN on duty at all times, and a patient was not given the correct medication dosage.
The specific federal watch list this institution was placed on is called a Special Focus Facility List. This list's goal is to motivate facilities to fix their problems or they may not be allowed to participate in Medicare/Medicaid programs. Facilities on this list receive an increased number of inspections and attention.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury lawyer serving western and central Pennsylvania. He takes cases for older Pennsylvanians who have been abused or neglected. For more information on his Altoona, PA area practice, please call his office at 814-946-4100 or visit his website at http://www.stoehrlaw.com. Attorney Stoehr takes cases in Blair and the seven surrounding counties.
Showing posts with label nursing home attendants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nursing home attendants. Show all posts
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Be Careful What You Sign
Many people do not read what they sign when they are admitting their loved ones into nursing homes. It is very important to read what you're signing so that you do not sign away important rights, such as the right to sue a negligent nursing home. NBC News covered this phenomenon in a recent article written by Michelle Andrews on 9/18/2012. The article may be viewed by reading below or clicking this link.
When Paul Ormond signed John Mitchell into a nursing home in Dennis, Mass., in June, he was handed a few dozen pages of admission papers. Ormond, Mitchell's legal guardian and an old friend, signed wherever the director of admissions told him to.
He didn't realize that one of those documents was an agreement that required Mitchell and his family to take disputes to a professional arbitrator rather than to court.
Mitchell had been institutionalized since suffering a stroke in 1999. During a hospital stay early this summer, Mitchell, then 69, had received a tracheotomy and needed to switch to a nursing home that could accommodate him.
A few weeks after Mitchell arrived at the new nursing home, staff members dropped him while using a lift device to move him from his bed to his chair. Later that night Ormond, 63, got a call from the nursing home that Mitchell was unresponsive. Mitchell was rushed to the hospital, and doctors found that the fall had caused extensive bleeding on his brain. He died a few days later.
Mitchell's sons hired a lawyer to look into the circumstances surrounding their father's death. That was when Ormond learned that amid all the admissions papers he had signed was an arbitration agreement.
"I thought it was deceptive, and I was pretty angry that I'd been tricked into signing something that I didn't know what it was," says Ormond.
A mandatory arbitration agreement is an often overlooked document in the package of admissions papers at many nursing homes these days. It can have an outsize impact if something goes wrong. But anxious seniors or their caregivers often sign every document that's put in front of them, perhaps only glancing at the content.
Signing an arbitration agreement means that in the event of a problem that is not amicably resolved -- Mom slips on a wet floor and breaks her hip, say, or Dad wanders off the premises and gets hit by a car -- you agree to bring the dispute before a professional arbitrator rather than file a lawsuit for negligence or wrongful death, for example.
Agreeing to arbitrate is generally not in families' best interests, say consumer advocates. For one thing, it can be pricey. In addition to hiring a lawyer, the patient or family generally has to pay its share of the arbitrator's fee, which may come to hundreds of dollars an hour, says Paul Bland, a senior attorney at Public Justice, a public interest law firm based in Washington.
"In court, you don't have to pay the judge," he says. "Our taxes pay for that."
Court proceedings are also conducted in a public courtroom and leave a detailed public record that can inform industry practice and help develop case law, say experts. Not so with arbitration hearings, which are conducted in private and whose proceedings and materials are often protected by confidentiality rules.
The amount awarded -- if any -- may also be less if an arbitrator hears the case than it would be if a case went to trial, say experts.
Aon Global Risk Consulting analyzed 1,449 closed claims involving long-term-care providers between 2003 and 2011 and found that there was no money awarded in 30 percent of claims where a valid arbitration agreement was in place, compared with 19 percent of claims in which there was no arbitration agreement or the agreement was determined to be unenforceable.
Likewise, nearly 12 percent of claims without arbitration agreements resulted in awards of $250,000 or more, compared with 8.5 percent of claims with arbitration agreements.
The study was conducted with the American Health Care Association, which represents 11,000 long-term-care facilities. According to the report, "loss rates" -- reflecting the dollar value of liability claims paid -- are increasing 4 percent annually.
"Liability costs for providing care have grown and escalated" in recent years, says Greg Crist, a spokesman for the association. Arbitration agreements help keep a lid on those costs, he says.
That may explain why arbitration agreements have become much more common in nursing homes, experts say. The agreements are increasingly used in assisted living facilities as well.
Arbitration can also benefit patients and their families, Crist says. Claims are typically resolved more quickly than court cases, he says, so attorney costs are lower and patients can retain a larger portion of any financial settlement.
The Federal Arbitration Act, enacted in 1925, allows for two sides in a dispute to agree to binding arbitration to resolve their differences. If a dispute arises and an arbitration agreement is in place, the arbitrators are jointly selected by the patient and the nursing home.
Although consumers usually don't realize it, there's a simple way to avoid being forced into arbitration, say experts: Don't sign the arbitration agreement.
What happens if you don't sign? Nothing, Crist says. "It's not a condition of admission to the facility," he says. The American Health Care Association doesn't support requiring people to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of admission, he says, although practices may vary at individual nursing homes.
If you do sign and then wish you hadn't, arbitration agreements typically have a 30-day "opt-out" provision that allows you to change your mind and retain your rights to sue.
The judge in John Mitchell's wrongful death case threw out the agreement on the grounds that it was "unconscionable", a legal term used to describe contracts that are unfair or unjust.
"The judge agreed it was too much to expect me to digest all of this information at once, and that the arbitration clause hadn't been explained thoroughly," says Ormond. A trial date hasn't yet been set.
Arguing that an agreement is unconscionable is one of the few ways people can extricate themselves from arbitration agreements once a dispute arises, says David Hoey, a North Reading, Mass., lawyer representing the Mitchell family. Another possibility is to prove that the person wasn't competent to sign an agreement or that the family member who signed wasn't legally qualified to do so.
Better yet, experts agree, is not to sign in the first place.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury lawyer in Altoona, PA who specializes in nursing home abuse and neglect, as well as car accident claims. For more information on his central Pennsylvania practice, please visit his website or call his law firm at 814-946-4100.
He didn't realize that one of those documents was an agreement that required Mitchell and his family to take disputes to a professional arbitrator rather than to court.
Mitchell had been institutionalized since suffering a stroke in 1999. During a hospital stay early this summer, Mitchell, then 69, had received a tracheotomy and needed to switch to a nursing home that could accommodate him.
A few weeks after Mitchell arrived at the new nursing home, staff members dropped him while using a lift device to move him from his bed to his chair. Later that night Ormond, 63, got a call from the nursing home that Mitchell was unresponsive. Mitchell was rushed to the hospital, and doctors found that the fall had caused extensive bleeding on his brain. He died a few days later.
Mitchell's sons hired a lawyer to look into the circumstances surrounding their father's death. That was when Ormond learned that amid all the admissions papers he had signed was an arbitration agreement.
"I thought it was deceptive, and I was pretty angry that I'd been tricked into signing something that I didn't know what it was," says Ormond.
A mandatory arbitration agreement is an often overlooked document in the package of admissions papers at many nursing homes these days. It can have an outsize impact if something goes wrong. But anxious seniors or their caregivers often sign every document that's put in front of them, perhaps only glancing at the content.
Signing an arbitration agreement means that in the event of a problem that is not amicably resolved -- Mom slips on a wet floor and breaks her hip, say, or Dad wanders off the premises and gets hit by a car -- you agree to bring the dispute before a professional arbitrator rather than file a lawsuit for negligence or wrongful death, for example.
Agreeing to arbitrate is generally not in families' best interests, say consumer advocates. For one thing, it can be pricey. In addition to hiring a lawyer, the patient or family generally has to pay its share of the arbitrator's fee, which may come to hundreds of dollars an hour, says Paul Bland, a senior attorney at Public Justice, a public interest law firm based in Washington.
"In court, you don't have to pay the judge," he says. "Our taxes pay for that."
Court proceedings are also conducted in a public courtroom and leave a detailed public record that can inform industry practice and help develop case law, say experts. Not so with arbitration hearings, which are conducted in private and whose proceedings and materials are often protected by confidentiality rules.
The amount awarded -- if any -- may also be less if an arbitrator hears the case than it would be if a case went to trial, say experts.
Aon Global Risk Consulting analyzed 1,449 closed claims involving long-term-care providers between 2003 and 2011 and found that there was no money awarded in 30 percent of claims where a valid arbitration agreement was in place, compared with 19 percent of claims in which there was no arbitration agreement or the agreement was determined to be unenforceable.
Likewise, nearly 12 percent of claims without arbitration agreements resulted in awards of $250,000 or more, compared with 8.5 percent of claims with arbitration agreements.
The study was conducted with the American Health Care Association, which represents 11,000 long-term-care facilities. According to the report, "loss rates" -- reflecting the dollar value of liability claims paid -- are increasing 4 percent annually.
"Liability costs for providing care have grown and escalated" in recent years, says Greg Crist, a spokesman for the association. Arbitration agreements help keep a lid on those costs, he says.
That may explain why arbitration agreements have become much more common in nursing homes, experts say. The agreements are increasingly used in assisted living facilities as well.
Arbitration can also benefit patients and their families, Crist says. Claims are typically resolved more quickly than court cases, he says, so attorney costs are lower and patients can retain a larger portion of any financial settlement.
The Federal Arbitration Act, enacted in 1925, allows for two sides in a dispute to agree to binding arbitration to resolve their differences. If a dispute arises and an arbitration agreement is in place, the arbitrators are jointly selected by the patient and the nursing home.
Although consumers usually don't realize it, there's a simple way to avoid being forced into arbitration, say experts: Don't sign the arbitration agreement.
What happens if you don't sign? Nothing, Crist says. "It's not a condition of admission to the facility," he says. The American Health Care Association doesn't support requiring people to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of admission, he says, although practices may vary at individual nursing homes.
If you do sign and then wish you hadn't, arbitration agreements typically have a 30-day "opt-out" provision that allows you to change your mind and retain your rights to sue.
The judge in John Mitchell's wrongful death case threw out the agreement on the grounds that it was "unconscionable", a legal term used to describe contracts that are unfair or unjust.
"The judge agreed it was too much to expect me to digest all of this information at once, and that the arbitration clause hadn't been explained thoroughly," says Ormond. A trial date hasn't yet been set.
Arguing that an agreement is unconscionable is one of the few ways people can extricate themselves from arbitration agreements once a dispute arises, says David Hoey, a North Reading, Mass., lawyer representing the Mitchell family. Another possibility is to prove that the person wasn't competent to sign an agreement or that the family member who signed wasn't legally qualified to do so.
Better yet, experts agree, is not to sign in the first place.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury lawyer in Altoona, PA who specializes in nursing home abuse and neglect, as well as car accident claims. For more information on his central Pennsylvania practice, please visit his website or call his law firm at 814-946-4100.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Nursing Home Attendant Sells Stolen Pills
Nursing homes and their employees are extremely variable in terms of their level of expertise, cleanliness, and professional demeanor. In some cases, the employees of the nursing home facilities are not there for the right reasons. In a recent article by UPI.com, the case of a Pennsylvania nursing home worker selling stolen pills was covered.
According to the article, a nursing home employee in Windy Gap, PA was recently accused of leaving patients unattended, some who suffered from dementia, while she sold morphine pills stolen from the facility. She was caught when police received a call from a woman who said she was approached by the worker at her house, who tried to sell her morphine pills. The worker admitted to taking the pills and trying to sell them.
This case is just one of many that attorneys across the country come across in their practice. Nursing homes can be dangerous places if not properly run and staffed. If you suspect that you or a loved one is in a nursing home and is not receiving proper or appropriate care, it may be time to consult with an attorney. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit our website.
According to the article, a nursing home employee in Windy Gap, PA was recently accused of leaving patients unattended, some who suffered from dementia, while she sold morphine pills stolen from the facility. She was caught when police received a call from a woman who said she was approached by the worker at her house, who tried to sell her morphine pills. The worker admitted to taking the pills and trying to sell them.
This case is just one of many that attorneys across the country come across in their practice. Nursing homes can be dangerous places if not properly run and staffed. If you suspect that you or a loved one is in a nursing home and is not receiving proper or appropriate care, it may be time to consult with an attorney. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit our website.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
High Turnover For Nursing Home Attendants
The nursing home industry is one that is experiencing growth right now, since many aging Americans from the "baby boom" generation are beginning to retire and some decide to enter into nursing homes and assisted living facilities. With the boom in patients, nursing home are either hiring more attendants or giving attendants longer work hours. Unfortunately, nursing homes also have a high turnover rate for employees.
A recent article by USA Today talked at length about this phenomenon. According to the newspaper article, staff shortages are common in nursing home facilities and turnover rates are high. Between states, the annual turnover rate is between 60-100%, according to research from the Institute for the Future of Aging Services.This is due in large part to the low wages paid by many nursing homes. Over 20 states have regulated the industry, resulting in minimum-wage protection, some staff members do still make less than $7.25 an hour. Additionally, according to the article, "Since 2000, there has been a 23% increase in home health care employment, while salaries have remained the same, about $21,000 a year, according to a study conducted by Michael Hicks of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University". Overall, low wages and little to no benefits are leading to low desirability and high turnover rates for these jobs.
This new insight into nursing home employees will be helpful in allowing nursing homes to realize how to care for and better serve their patients and staff. With this in mind, nursing homes may be able to modify their practices and staffing procedures to decrease their incidents of negligence, abuse, and under/inefficient staffing. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit our website.
A recent article by USA Today talked at length about this phenomenon. According to the newspaper article, staff shortages are common in nursing home facilities and turnover rates are high. Between states, the annual turnover rate is between 60-100%, according to research from the Institute for the Future of Aging Services.This is due in large part to the low wages paid by many nursing homes. Over 20 states have regulated the industry, resulting in minimum-wage protection, some staff members do still make less than $7.25 an hour. Additionally, according to the article, "Since 2000, there has been a 23% increase in home health care employment, while salaries have remained the same, about $21,000 a year, according to a study conducted by Michael Hicks of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University". Overall, low wages and little to no benefits are leading to low desirability and high turnover rates for these jobs.
This new insight into nursing home employees will be helpful in allowing nursing homes to realize how to care for and better serve their patients and staff. With this in mind, nursing homes may be able to modify their practices and staffing procedures to decrease their incidents of negligence, abuse, and under/inefficient staffing. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit our website.
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