Regardless of how we look at it, the sad reality of present-day nursing homes is that the majority of their residents endure at least some form of abuse during their stay at the institution. If one of those residents is a loved one or close relative, and they have suffered a case of negligent abuse at the hands of on-site responsible staff, you should take immediate action.
While it might seem like a stressful and difficult process upon the first inspection, improving the quality of life of your elder family member is a lot easier than you would expect. Here are a few methods to do just that:
Establishing their Options for Medicare
First and foremost, the patient’s continued safety and well-being should be ensured at all times, before any other action is taken.
After all, they still require to be looked after daily, and the key to the problem lies in Medicare.
The two types of nursing home services – custodial care and skilled nursing care, define an institution’s ability to take care of its residents.
Beyond the many rights that your loved one is entitled to under US Medicare, including being treated with respect and no trace of abuse and neglect, their nursing institution needs to provide them with the medical treatment they require.
Upon consulting with their doctor, you should establish whether or not their current nursing home is providing them with the equipment, medication, and care services for their special condition. These may include:
- Alzheimer’s
- Dementia
- Heart conditions
- Forms of cancer
Taking all of this into account, you should now consider their extrication from the nursing institution they currently find themselves in.
Transferring Them to a Different Nursing Home
While their current nursing establishment might no longer be an ideal solution, you need to find a suitable alternative as soon as possible.
If your loved one has, therefore, been mistreated from either a custodial or nursing care perspective, you should be allowed to move them to a professionally staffed environment that prioritizes the needs of their residents above anything else.
A checklist regarding Skilled Nursing Facility best practices is given by the medicare.gov site to help out individuals with proving that their employed nursing home has mistreated the resident who was entrusted in their care.
Through this piece of concrete evidence, you should have all the bureaucratic aid you require so that you could move your elderly family member from their current living conditions.
Finding a Legal Specialist that Can Help
Once you have assured yourself that your loved one is in good hands and is receiving the custodial and medical facilities they are rightfully entitled to, it is now time to consider what legal options you have in finding appropriate compensation for the emotional and physical pain they have endured.
In order to seek justice for your loved one, you should appeal to the knowledge and expertise of a specialized nursing home abuse lawyer.
Because of the sensitive legal nature of your family member’s abuse, your chances of earning their justice all by yourself are slim at best.
As such, through extensive legal counsel, you can figure out the exact type of injury that the abuser and the institution that they represent has brought on, and act in accordance with the logistic aspects of the field of personal injury law.
Nursing home victimizations can include but are not limited to:
- Severe emotional and psychological trauma
- Financial exploitation
- Aggravation of pre-existing medical conditions through gross negligence and professional misconduct
- Newly developed physical injuries caused by overly aggressive abuse, such as weight loss, bruises, bone fractures, among many others
All things considered, by appealing to a specialized attorney, you will have engaged in a thorough case evaluation that delves into the specifics of your loved one’s abusive situation, and you will have all the information that you need for a rightfully confident nursing home abuse claim.