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It’s definitely a significant challenge to know when you can trust a skilled nursing facility to care for your loved one. Compounding the difficulty is that, because of high demand for nursing home space, you may not have many choices with a vacancy available when you need it.

It pays to be selective, even if that may mean choosing a nursing home that is not in your immediate neighborhood. Check with friends and neighbors to see if they have any recommendations—or if they can tell you about a dangerous nursing home you ought to avoid. Try to visit each candidate nursing home to get your own sense of the place. Talk to administrators and residents.

Pre-admission Issues that Deserve your Attention

During your visit before your wife is admitted to a nursing home, here are some issues you will want to look out for:

Long-term Care Facilities Should Provide Great Care to Residents

Your wife deserves to be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness while she is a resident of a Pennsylvania nursing home. Caregivers should not act as if she is a burden. If your wife witnesses or experiences unprofessional or unsafe behavior, that should be reported to nursing home supervisors and to your nursing home neglect lawyer.

The Law Firm of Schmidt Kramer is dedicated to the idea that abuse and neglect in assisted living facilities is not acceptable. We aggressively pursue justice when people have been injured in dangerous Pennsylvania nursing homes. The compensation we can obtain may cover emotional distress and suffering as well as economic losses. If you believe you or your spouse may have the grounds for a lawsuit in Harrisburg, Carlisle, York, or other nearby towns, call us at 717-888-8888 locally or (717) 888-8888 toll-free to schedule a free, confidential case review with our trial attorney. We would be glad to answer any questions you may have.

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Nursing homes provide both short and long term nursing and rehabilitative care. Individuals who require nursing home care usually have great difficulty completing many daily activities independently. These individuals require supervision or assistance to complete activities such as taking medications, walking, completing grooming tasks like brushing their hair and teeth, taking a bath or shower, and using the toilet. This may have resulted from an acute illness (such as a fractured bone, stroke, etc.) or from long term chronic illnesses (such as arthritis, pulmonary diseases, dementia, etc.). 

Nursing homes can be a place for someone who needs brief rehabilitation; it is no longer true that a nursing home placement is “forever.” Hospitals tend to discharge people sooner than they have in the past. Often a brief nursing home stay allows an individual to recuperate prior to returning to her/his previous lifestyle. Whether choosing a nursing home for a short-term or long-term stay, the first step is to have a physician evaluate your needs. The physician will determine the services you will need and make a recommendation for the length of your stay. Your physician may provide you with opinions as to the appropriate nursing homes to meet your needs. If you are in a hospital, the hospital social worker can also help you choose a nursing home and plan your discharge. 

The Area Agency on Aging will also complete a need assessment to determine the level of care and length of stay appropriate to your situation. This is called an Options Determination. To learn more about this program go to the Department of Aging website.

Under certain circumstance you may even be able to rehabilitate at home with assistance from home health services. This option is considered when there is adequate support available from family, professional caregivers, and the communities in which you reside. 

It is important to remember that nursing homes provide a high level of supervision and resident interaction. Some medical conditions require this intense type of monitoring, however, not all medical conditions require this skilled level of care. Some individuals can benefit from less stringent monitoring and assistance. Options for this type of care can vary widely including personal care homes, assisted living, boarding homes, and continuous care retirement communities (commonly referred to as CCRC’s). There is a wealth of information on these placement options available on the Internet. Simply enter key words and complete a search. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare monitors many of these types of facilities.

The Pennsylvania nursing home attorneys at Schmidt Kramer Injury Lawyers see that this case has repercussions for families with elderly parents. Our nursing home attorneys also work on cases of nursing home neglect or abuse. If you suspect that your loved one is not being cared for properly in a skilled nursing facility, please contact a Central Pennsylvania  nursing home abuse lawyer at (717) 888-8888 or dial 8 and 717-888-8888 for a free consultation.

 

No.

It sounds as if the nursing home representative is confusing his facts, either by error or deliberately to mislead you. Let’s look at what he’s mixing up: the role of Medicaid and the principle of subrogation.

Medicaid

In all likelihood, Medicaid was paying for your grandma’s stay at the nursing home.

Medicarethe federal health insurance program for older Americansdoes not provide coverage for what’s called “long-term care,” such as residential care in a nursing home. Medicare will only cover brief nursing home stays for patients making the transition from a hospital back to home. Some people buy special insurance policies to pay for residential care in their later years, but this is too expensive for a lot of people. If they become infirm in their senior years, they must turn to Medicaid to pay the costs of nursing home care.

Medicaid is the government health coverage plan for people in poverty. To qualify for Medicaid, your grandmother would have sold most of her possessions and signed all her assets over to the federal government. The government even withholds her monthly Social Security benefits, except for a token amount for personal expenses. In exchange, the Medicaid program paid the nursing home’s fee on behalf of your mother.

Subrogation

Subrogation is an insurance principle that prevents claimants from “double-dipping”from collecting from two different payers for one injury.

The classic illustration is when you or someonewe’ll call him Mr. Smithgets hurt in an auto accident. Mr. Smith goes to the hospital after the accident and has a splint put on his fractured arm. He has coverage from both his personal health insurance and his auto insurance claim, but Mr. Smith isn’t going to be allowed to collect twice for his medical bills. His health insurance company will be able to claim the part of the auto insurance check that represents the medical benefits already paid.

If you want a deeper understanding of this topic, download our FREE report from this website, Navigating The Subrogation Nightmare: What to Do When The Insurance Company Says You Have To Pay Them Back.

Where the Nursing Home Representative Gets it Wrong

The nursing home representative seems to be claiming that, because Medicaid was paying for Grandma’s residential stay, Medicaid will be able to use the subrogation rules to seize any money your get from a lawsuit.

That’s not true at all. A wrongful death in a Pennsylvania nursing home isn’t the same as any other personal injury claim, because the person filing the claim isn’t the one who was hurt the worst. Your grandmother died, but she (or, rather, her estate) is not seeking compensation from the nursing home. Your and your family are demanding compensation because you have suffered your own individual losses when Grandma died.

Subrogation doesn’t apply, because Medicaid hasn’t paid any benefits to you or on your behalf; it’s paid only for your grandmother. Medicaid will have no legitimate claim on any money you get from the nursing home in a settlement or damages award. The nursing home representative is just trying to persuade you not to file a legal action by convincing you it would be futile.

Don’t let nursing home bullies push you around. Our nursing home neglect lawyers in Harrisburg are standing by to answer your questions about whether you have a valid claim. Get answers to your questions by calling Schmidt Kramer at (717) 888-8888 toll-free to schedule a free, confidential case review, or use the contact form on this page to tell us about your needs.

It is often best to research as many nursing homes as possible prior to making your selection. By going to our web site you can print an alphabetical list of all nursing homes in the county that you select. Once you have the list, cross off those nursing homes that are outside of the area you feel comfortable traveling. 

It will be important to determine whether the nursing home accepts insurance coverage, Medicare (for more information on Medicare coverage), Medical Assistance, or is private pay. It is important to consider whether a nursing home will be able to continue providing service if you run out of financial resources necessary for private pay placements. You may wish to discuss this with a financial advisor familiar with long-term care issues. 

After you have determined the distance and financial status of the nursing homes on your list, it is time to review the types of services that each provides. Consider whether the nursing home offers services in-house such as physical and occupational therapies, counseling, activities and recreation, pharmacy, podiatry, specialized medicine, etc… Research which acute care facilities (hospitals) are nearby and with whom the nursing home has transfer agreements. Again, it is important to ask what services will be covered by insurance and what is paid for privately. For instance, television cable services, hairdressing, and telephone service charges often vary widely. Once you have completed these preliminary steps, your list should be down to a more manageable level.

The nursing home attorneys at Schmidt Kramer Injury Lawyers see that this case has repercussions for families with elderly parents. The Harrisburg nursing home attorneys also work on cases of nursing home neglect or abuse. If you suspect that your loved one is not being cared for properly in a skilled nursing facility, please contact a Central Pennsylvania  nursing home abuse lawyer at (717) 888-8888 or dial 8 and 717-888-8888 for a free consultation.

We’re happy to hear that the outcome was so much better than it could have been.

About half of all Pennsylvania nursing home residents suffer from some form of dementia. These people are at increased risk of elopement – the tendency to wander off the premises without permission or supervision. Elopement exposes a nursing home resident to horrible danger. The disabilities that come with dementia mean that the nursing home resident can easily become confused or disoriented outside the facility. As you certainly are aware, there are regular news reports of nursing home wandering cases in which the resident became lost, roamed into traffic, fell into a ditch, or suffered from exposure from being improperly dressed for the weather conditions.

Managers and staff at all Pennsylvania nursing homes understand these risks. They have a legal obligation to guard Pennsylvania nursing home residents from harm, and that means they must implement active strategies to prevent elopement. When the residential care facility or its personnel fail in this duty, they—the business and its employees—can be held liable for any injuries and losses that follow.

However, you say that your father suffered no ill effects from his 12-hour absence. Our civil legal system is designed to give people compensation when they are harmed by someone else’s negligence. If the nursing home was negligent but no harm occurred, then there is no basis to ask for compensation.

The big question, then, is this: how do you know that your father suffered no harm as a result of his elopement?

Perhaps officials from the nursing home assured you that your Dad is okay. If that’s the case, we shouldn’t rely too much on their statements. These are the same people who promised you that your father would never be able to wander away from his new home. Nursing home administrators may want to discourage you from investigating the case too closely, so of course they will tell you everything is fine.

Four Checkpoints Worth Examining

We can think of four distinct aspects of this incident that you may want to investigate before your mind will be at ease about your father’s elopement last month:

Let Us Help You Seek the Maximum Recovery for Your Case

Our nursing home neglect lawyers in Harrisburg have seen too many tragedies occur as a result of wandering away from residential facilities in central Pennsylvania. The team at Schmidt Kramer has been able to help many families in York, Lebanon, Carlisle, Lancaster, and surrounding communities get full and fair compensation on behalf of abused and neglected senior care residents.

We have already suggested some approaches you may want to take in deciding whether your father actually got through his experience unscathed. If you have additional questions, or if a doctor’s evaluation discovers that your Dad’s condition has worsened, you may want a full confidential case evaluation by one of our experienced Harrisburg trial lawyers. To schedule a completely FREE case review, call us at 717-888-8888 locally or (717) 888-8888 toll-free.

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Both.

For over 20 years, federal regulations have forbidden the use of physical or chemical restraints in nursing homes as a means to keep residents docile or under control. Now, clearly there are some situations where a resident may present a danger to herself or other people, and in those cases some form of restraints can be justified. But there are protocols in place to make sure this doesn’t become abusive. In most situations, a physician must order that physical restraints or drugs be used to control the resident.

In some nursing homes, those rules are regularly disobeyed. As a routine matter, residents may be to the following forms of abusive treatment:

Sometimes the techniques used to restrain Pennsylvania nursing home residents are very subtle. A feeble patient can be forced to remain in place by wedge cushions or bed sheets tucked tightly around her body. A patient in a wheelchair may be effectively immobilized by parking her facing a wall. Caregiver staff members do this to avoid dealing with “nuisance” patients who make frequent demands, or to punish residents who resist staff control.

Your Best Response When you Suspect Abuse

If you believe that your mother is living in an abusive or neglectful assisted living facility, then your first priority should be removing her to a safer place to live. You do not want your mother to be at risk for even one more day, and you certainly don’t want her exposed to possible reprisals if you register a complaint with authorities.

For the sake of the other residents of the nursing home, you will want to alert law enforcement about possible abusive conditions. You also may want to consider filing a civil lawsuit on your mother’s behalf to get compensation for the harm that has been done to her and payment for any medical treatment that will help her recover from that abuse. In both cases, your best option will be to contact a Harrisburg nursing home abuse lawyer.

Our Harrisburg personal injury attorneys at Schmidt Kramer have a great deal of experience in dealing with nursing home claims. We can tell you what local and federal authorities should receive in your report about a dangerous nursing home, or we can even contact those authorities on your behalf. To get your questions answered, contact us at 717-888-8888 or (717) 888-8888 toll-free to schedule a free, confidential appointment. Regardless of where you live in Pennsylvania, we can work with you to get your mother to a safe place to live and seek full compensation for the indignities she has suffered.

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Most nursing homes have admissions workers who will be happy to schedule a tour for you. Be sure that you are also welcome to drop in after your tour to review your first impressions. It is often helpful to visit in early evening so that you have observed the caregiving activities on both daylight and evening shifts.

Checklists are a recommended way of recording your observations when you visit a nursing home. You can design your own or use one of the many checklists available on the Internet. Any checklist you choose to use should include some basic information.

The following are suggestions for items that you may wish to include on your checklist. These are not all-inclusive but should rather be viewed as a starting point. Remember to put the date and time of your visit on each checklist as you visit nursing homes. A photograph of the outside of the facility can also be a good reminder. If the facility offers you a brochure be sure to attach this to your checklist.

The Harrisburg nursing home attorneys at Schmidt Kramer Injury Lawyers see that this case has repercussions for families with elderly parents. Our firm also works on cases of nursing home neglect or abuse.

If you suspect that your loved one is not being cared for properly in a skilled nursing facility, please contact a Central Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyer at (717) 888-8888 or dial 8 and 717-888-8888 for a free consultation.