CGWC Orlando Injury Attorney Blog

Orlando, Florida

Patient at Orlando-area assisted-living facility died of neglect, - state halts admissions - Sunday, November 15, 2009

A Patient at an Orlando-area assisted-living facility died of neglect, while others suffered. The state halts admissions to the facility.

Inspectors from the Agency for Health Care Administration found a total collapse in delivery of care when asked to inspect the assisted living facility following the death of the resident. Inspectors found that a resident died from a failure to administer prescribed heart medication, and that another resident had to be hospitalized when given blood thinning medication that had not been prescribed. Employees were also found to have falsified medication administration records and nurses' orders.

At The Florida Firm, we regret to say that such neglect in nursing homes and assisted living facilities is all too common, and we have represented hundreds of families who fell victim to abuse or neglect in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. If your family must use the services of a nursing home or assisted living facility, visit our wesbite for guidelines in choosing the right nursing home for your loved one. If your loved one has been a victim of neglect in a long term care environment, contact us for a free consultation.

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Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect Lawyers - Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Sadly, abuse and neglect are all too common in nursing homes, especially here in the retirement capital of the world. Florida's nursing homes have too few skilled and dedicated workers, and too many are undertrained and poorly motivated. Many nursing homes are undercapitalized and poorly supervised and operated by their investor owners and poorly regulated by state inspectors and regulators. The results often mean injuries such as falls, bedsores, dehydration, malnutrition, and medication errors.

If a loved one has been the victim of negligence, neglect, or abuse at a nursing home or assisted living facility, you need an experienced nursing home abuse attorney. For a free consultation, call CGWC.

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Why Is There So Much Nursing Home Neglect? - Saturday, April 25, 2009

Why is there so much nursing home neglect in Florida? Why do so many nursing home patients fall, suffering broken bones and unnecessary surgery that lead to an early death? Why do so many parents and grandparents in nursing homes get horrible bedsores that become infected and lead to deadly blood poisoning? Why do so many nursing home patients look like their hair hasn't been combed in months or their clothes changed in days? Why do so many nursing homes smell like they haven't been cleaned?

Properly taking care of nursing home patients takes time and an adequate number of nurses, nurse assistants, aides and dietary personnel. Our Florida legislators know this because some years ago, they instituted safe staffing requirements to ensure patients in nursing homes received at least 2.9 hours of care per day. But last year, the Florida Legislature suspended enforcement of these safe staffing laws, apparently with a wink and a nod to the wealthy nursing home industry and its powerful lobbyists.

Recently, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) surveyed health care workers and found that 80% reported that a nursing home resident's health or safety had been put in immediate jeopardy as a result of staffing shortages. Because of short-staffing of nursing homes, their employees find it impossible to deliver proper care to nursing home patients, causing needless suffering.

If a loved one has been the victim of nursing home neglect or abuse, call CGWC for a free legal consultation to find out about the legal rights of nursing home residents.

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Jury Awards $ 11 Million Against Assisted Living Facility - Thursday, March 26, 2009

An Arizona jury recently awarded $ 11 million to the widow of a resident who died there after ingesting foreign objects while apparently unsupervised. The resident had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident and had been placed in the assisted living facility that promised to provide 24 hours supervision. After the man died, an autopsy revealed that he had consumed plastic bags, ketchup packets, candy wrappers, and paper towels. The medical examiner concluded that the presence of these foreign objects in his stomach and intestines contributed to his wrongful death. The jury awarded the estate $ 2 million for the deceased, $ 5 million for the widow, and $ 4 million in punitive damages. The ALF staff had clearly falsified records indicating they were providing care to the victim when he was actually at home visiting with his wife or otherwise outside of the facility.

If a loved one has been the victim of negligence, neglect, or abuse at an assisted living facility, a nursing home, day care facility, or other institution, contact CGWC for a free consultation.

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Epidemic of Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse - Thursday, February 12, 2009

According to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 94% of nursing homes in America have received citations for violations of federal standards of care. Despite this, Consumer Reports says state regulators only fine about 50% of the time they're found to provide this substandard care. As a result of poor care, unsupervised residents fall and sustain life-threatening and sometimes fatal injuries. Patients develop bedsores caused by patients being left in one position too long. Sometimes these sores, caused by unrelieved pressure from mattresses or wheelchair seats cutting off blood supply to bony prominences like heels, tailbones, and hips, penetrate all the way to the bone and become infected and fatal. Patients suffer from malnutrition, weight loss, dehydration and kidney failure.

Why are these results so common in nursing homes? Are senior citizens doomed to starve, suffer broken bones in falls, and become riddled with bedsores at the end of their lives in nursing homes? Are these tragedies just unavoidable consequences of getting old? Of course not. Understaffed nursing homes driven by the motivation to make enormous profits from Medicare and Medicaid dollars, your taxes, make such neglect and abuse all too common. If wealthy operators were satisfied with a little less profit, they could hire enough staff to minimize this neglect, and our parents and grandparents wouldn't be neglected in a whopping 94% of these nursing homes.

If a loved one has been injured or worse in a nursing home, call CGWC for a free consultation about your legal rights.

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Is Arbitration Fair? - Saturday, October 18, 2008

You have probably heard about arbitration clauses that big businesses usually slip into their contracts with consumers. For example, cell phone agreements, credit card agreements, and a host of other common consumer contracts routinely have arbitration clauses with "boilerplate" language that forces unwitting consumers to literally give up their right to have any disputes decided by a judge or jury. Instead, arbitration clauses require disputes to be submitted to certain trade groups or professional arbitrators who are often less sympathetic to and empathetic with consumers who are, by definition, novices in the trade or business dispute.

More and more, other businesses are sneaking arbitration clauses into their contracts with consumers. Even nursing homes and doctors are now pulling the wool over patients' eyes and burying arbitration clauses into their patient care agreements. Be careful what you sign when receiving medical care anywhere and, of course, when signing any consumer contract. Why should you be suspicious of arbitration clauses? After all, big business will tell you that resolving disputes by arbitration is cheaper for you and faster.

One reason to be suspect is that big businesses rarely agree to arbitration clauses to resolve their own disputes. Three law school professors from Cornell, New York University, and the University of Michigan recently completed a study finding that big businesses put arbitration clauses in 75% of their consumer agreements, but only 25% of their contracts overall. If these companies believe arbitration is a fair and cost saving process, then why don't they insist on arbitration clauses when they contract with one another?

Read before you sign. Don't waive your right to have your case decided by a jury of your peers lightly.

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Florida Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers Say Over 97% of Florida Nursing Homes Are Unsafe - Friday, October 10, 2008

According to an audit of Florida nursing homes by the Office of Inspector General, over 97% of Florida nursing homes had health and safety violations over the last three years. That means that almost 100% of the nursing homes in Florida provided substandard care over the past three years. Florida nursing homes ranked13th worst of all 50 states in health care and safety.

The Office of Inspector General looked at data nationwide from 2005 through 2007 showing that one in five nursing homes were cited for cited for violations causing "actual harm or immediate jeopardy" to nursing home residents in their care. The study also found that "for profit" nursing homes were cited more than non-profit or government owned long term care facilities.

Florida law grants nursing home and assisted living facility residents specific rights, including the right to adequate health care and supervision. If a loved one or family member has been injured or killed in a nursing home or assisted living facility, call CGWC for a free consultation.

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Nursing Home Residents Deprived Of Right to Jury Trial - Sunday, April 13, 2008

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, more and more nursing home residents are being forced to give up their rights to a jury trial when they sign agreements admitting them to nursing homes. Many nursing home admission agreements now include "arbitration" clauses in which residents waive their right to jury trial against the nursing home in the event they are abused, neglected or victimized by nursing malpractice or some other medical mistake.

The Wall Street Journal says the nursing home companies are benefiting from such agreements. The cost of settling cases has begun dropping, even as claims of neglect, abuse and poor treatment increase. According to a study done last year, the cost to these companies dropped by more than 35% per case from 1999 to 2006. The arbitration approach is not limited to the nursing home industry. Many industries are beginning to write arbitration clauses into their boilerplate contracts in order to cut litigation costs and avoid the judgment of juries.

Be sure you know what you're signing when admitting a relative to a nursing home. Buried in the admission agreement may be an arbitration clause that gives up your loved one's rights, including the right to a jury trial, even if they are recklessly abused or neglected in the nursing home.

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Proposed Bill Would Hold Nursing Homes Accountable - Saturday, February 23, 2008

Over the last 7 or 8 years, many of our clients will attest that nursing home operators have effectively insulated themselves from accountability for abusing and neglecting their residents, many of whom are Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, cheating the government out of money and families out of good health care. They have done this by creating mazes of corporations, limited liability companies, real estate investment trusts, and other legal but suspect business entities, in arrangements that protect assets and revenues from abused and neglected residents and their families who seek civil justice in American courtrooms. Most insurance companies won't even insure these companies for liability because of the poor care they provide routinely and systematically all over the United States. This leaves injured residents and their families with little legal recourse and their attorneys frustrated in their attempts to hold these companies, many of whom are wealthy investment groups, responsible for the damage, injuries and deaths they've caused.

If Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has his way, a new bill proposed this month may change this trend and hold nursing home operators accountable. He has proposed the Nursing Home Transparency And Improvement Act of 2008 which would require disclosure of identity of owners and their affiliated entities, together with other remedies aimed at improving care and fairness to nursing home residents and their families. This bill is a good start, but even if it passes, it probably does not go far enough to assure fairness and a level playing field in the civil justice system. While it does require operators to identify and disclose entities involved in the operation of nursing homes, it does not address many other concerns prevalent in cases we see every day when seeking justice for nursing home residents and their families. Concerns like unfair arbitration clauses in admission agreements that residents and family members sign unwittingly and at an extremely stressful time when subject to undue influence from caregivers, social workers, and nursing home administrators. Concerns like the lack of mandatory liability insurance or self-insurance in adequate amounts to assure that nursing home operators are financially responsible and can pay for damages, injuries, or death that they cause while taking in millions of Medicare and Medicaid dollars for profit.

If you or a loved one has been a victim of nursing home abuse or neglect or injured in a nursing home or assisted living facility, call the experienced attorneys at CGWC for a free consultation.

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Ownership of Nursing Homes by Private Equity Investors Challenged - Saturday, December 15, 2007

In the last several months, the ownership of nursing homes by wealthy private equity companies has come under scrutiny. State legislatures and the federal government are conducting hearings addressing concerns that the purchase of nursing homes by these groups of wealthy investors decreases the quality of care provided to residents. CGWC partner Nathan P. Carter was asked to testify at Florida Senate hearings this past week and was quoted in an Associated Press article distributed widely by most media outlets, including CNN and major Florida newspapers.

Mr. Carter testified that wealthy investment groups set up complex layers of corporations and limited liability companies or partnerships in order to make it harder for injured or abused residents to sue them. Mr. Carter says the elimination of real legal accountability in turn removes incentive to operate nursing homes safely and provide the highest quality of care.

In Florida, this is particularly ominous since most nursing homes operate with no real liability insurance to cover injuries or deaths caused by negligence, neglect or abuse by their staff. This is true despite a state law enacted in 2001 requiring liability insurance. This is because loopholes in the law have not been closed by the governor's office or the Agency for Health Care Administration. AHCA, a part of the administrative branch answerable to the Florida Governor, has failed to enact or implement regulations imposing minimum levels of liability insurance, so this law is largely ignored. Instead, nursing home operators are entering into complex agreements with investment companies to avoid accountability to residents for injuries and to Medicare and Medicaid for fraudulent or illegal billing.

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New York Times Nursing Home Neglect Article Features CGWC Partner - Sunday, September 23, 2007

In the New York Times today, CGWC partner, Nathan P. Carter, is mentioned in an article regarding the newspaper's investigation of nursing home operators. A Times investigative article rightly bemoans how the quality of care in nursing homes has decreased as the profits to conglomerate investment companies who have taken over large parts of the long term care industry have skyrocketed. These huge investment companies are often large Wall Street private equity companies like The Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus.

According to the Times, while such investment companies have made lots of money by cutting expenses and staff, the data collected by government agencies indicate that their patients are suffering worse care. The New York Times investigation revealed that the nursing homes acquired by these investment companies scored worse than the national average in 12 of 14 criteria used by regulators to guage the quality of care provided to prevent and treat ailments like bedsores and infections. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the deficiencies in health care cited by government regulators last year was almost 19% higher in nursing homes operated by similar large investment companies.

Meanwhile, the operators of these nursing homes have evaded legal liability for this neglect by creating complex mazes of corporate structures to shield the companies (and individuals who pocket most of the profits) from civil lawsuits and regulatory fines. These slick corporate shell games also help the operators avoid government rules requiring them to report when they are, in effect, paying themselves for certain services with your tax money (Medicare and Medicaid).

Mr. Carter was interviewed and quoted in the article because of his experience and knowledge of nursing home abuse and neglect, nursing home operations and the corporate shell games they play. Nursing home operators set up mazes of corporations to make it difficult for attorneys and their neglected clients to collect on civil claims and to make it difficult for government regulators to levy fines or conduct investigations of entire chains of such nursing homes. These companies leave the licensees running the nursing homes with little or no assets. This means civil litigants find it harder to collect on claims, and government regulators can't enforce quality of care regulations by fining the companies responsible for the mismanagement.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a nursing home, you need an experienced nursing home abuse and neglect attorney who is knowledgeable of these sharp corporate tactics.

Nursing homes injure and kill patients every day across the country through falls, drownings, burnings, chokings, and other incidents related primarily to an overall lack of supervision. They also injure and kill patients through outright neglectful care, causing bedsores, weight loss, malnutrition, dehydration, infections, medication errors, and other negligence.

If you want to do your part to help our senior citizens, call your Congressman, Senator, and Governor and tell them to halt this irresponsible and greedy corporate abuse of our greatest generation. Send them this New York Times article and tell them to enact laws putting a stop to these corporations being paid by Medicare and Medicaid tax dollars while avoiding legal and regulatory liability for their malfeasance.

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Nursing Home Elopements Are Preventable - Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Police are this moment searching for a man in West Virginia who is missing from a nursing home. He walked off the grounds at approximately 11 p.m. on Sunday. Often, nursing home residents, like this 80 year old gentleman, suffer from dementia, poor judgment, poor safety awareness, and feelings of loneliness and isolation. As a result, and many times as a result of a lack of social stimulation or psychological evaluation in conjunction with these other reasons, residents will attempt to elope from their nursing homes and, in the process, get injured in falls, motor vehicle-pedestrian accidents, exposure to the elements, and other accidents off premises.

The attorneys at CGWC have extensive experience in litigating nursing home elopement cases. Elopements are not only preventable. They simply shouldn't happen if the nursing home is protecting the facility and its patients as if the facility were a home. There are extremely cost-effective ways of preventing emotionally, mentally, and physically vulnerable nursing home patients from eloping off premises where they are at risk of serious injury or death. For example, door alarms, security alarm bracelets, locator bracelets, bed alarms, and chair alarms are cheap ways to protect these vulnerable senior citizens. Nursing homes all over the country use door alarms to assure that residents don't leave the grounds without a staff member being made aware. Particular patients at risk of elopement based upon psychological profile or past history of such behavior can be cheaply protected with an ankle or arm bracelet that sounds an alarm when they leave the premises. Bed and chair alarms can cost-effectively notify staff members when a patient has attempted to leave his or her room and place themselve at risk of falling or injuring themselves in or out of the facility.

Of course, this technology alone is not enough. The staff must respond to the alarms, consistently supervise and monitor patients, assure the patients receive adequate social and mental stimulation and physical activity, and obtain psychological evaluations when needed to obtain additional doctors' orders or advice to minimize the risk of elopement and injury or death. For information and access to consumer assistance with nursing home care and protecting elderly parents entering nursing homes, consult with the Coalition to Protect America's Elders, Consumer Health Choices, Advancing Excellence In America's Nursing Homes, and other consumer organizations for senior citizens and nursing home residents.

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Nursing Homes Go Unpunished For Neglect and Abuse - Sunday, April 22, 2007

According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of the United States Congress, nursing homes across the country are repeatedly cited for mistreatment of patients with minimal penalties. As a result, these nursing homes abuse and neglect patients in violation of federal standards and pose a continuing and ongoing threat to the safety of nursing home patients.

While some of the nursing homes have harmed residents over periods as long as six years, they nonetheless remain in the Medicaid and Medicare programs, making profits largely from Medicaid and Medicare tax dollars. The Department of Health and Human Services continually fails in holding nursing homes with long histories of harming residents accountable for poor care, according to the GAO report.

The United States Congress enacted strict standards for nursing home care in 1987, and in 1998, the GAO reported that nursing homes were still routinely and regularly harming patients without facing sanctions from regulatory authorities. Despite promises by the Clinton and Bush administrations and the nursing home industry's repetitive announcements of initiatives to improve the quality of care, nothing has changed at the worst nursing homes according to the recent GAO report. In addition, the Bush administration rarely uses its authority to deny payment to nursing homes having a history of violating federal standards of care and typically fines them far less than the allowed maximum of $ 10,000 per day.

About 1.5 million U.S. residents live in the 16,400 nursing homes in America. Over 3 million receive care at nursing homes at some point each year. Government Medicare and Medicaid dollars pay for more than two thirds of the patients seen at nursing homes each year. Medicare and Medicaid, supported by your tax dollars, paid nursing homes 60% of the $ 122 Billion Dollars spent on nursing home care in the U.S. in 2005.

Yet, these nursing homes neglect and abuse the greatest generations of Americans each and every day while raking in billions in profits from tax dollars, private long term care insurance, and patients' personal retirement savings. It is wrong. The attorneys at Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter have extensive experience in litigating nursing home cases, having led a team of nursing home litigators handling cases in Florida, Tennessee, and West Virginia at our predecessor firm, Morgan, Colling & Gilbert. To prevail against this powerful industry in a case of abuse or neglect, an attorney must have the resources and experience to do battle successfully against the corporations that have callously and routinely violated federal standards for the last twenty years. Before hiring an attorney, a victim of nursing home abuse, neglect, or negligence should be sure the attorney and his firm have the resources and experience to get the job done.

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Nursing Home Abuse Often Overlooked Cruelty - Monday, February 26, 2007

According to an investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer recently, regulators often overlook neglect and abuse when monitoring and inspecting long term care facilities, such as assisted living facilities and nursing homes, ignoring signs of physical and psychological abuse, as well as outright neglect.

On Vietnam veteran with mental health problems was tortured for two months at a privately run nursing home. After one beating, he was hospitalized and called it a blessing to have been beaten so badly as it was his "ticket into a hospital - and out of hell." He had been savagely kicked, manhandled, and overdosed with psychotropic drugs. The couple who ran the facility also forced residents to do menial labor, fed them spoiled food, robbed them of their money, and beat them physically when they complained. Two residents died when they did not received needed medical attention.

State records showed state regulators investigated detailed complaints against the facility repeatedly over a two year period, rejecting the claims as unfounded. In Pennsylvania and most states, state regulators often miss beatings, neglect, and psychological abuse at such facilities. Bureaucrats often too easily accept the reassurances of those they regulate that residents somehow harm themselves or suffered from unavoidable accidents. In addition, inspections are often short and haphazard, as well as far too brief. Residents are often afraid to tell the truth, fearing retaliation by facility owners or caregivers. Operators and caregivers become immersed in a culture of cruelty, becoming desensitized at the care, or lack thereof, provided in the facility.

Reckless or negligent operation of nursing homes and assisted living facilities maniefests itself in ways that haunt any average American as inexcusable: malnutrition, dehydration, bedsores, weight loss, asphyxiation in bedrails or at unsupervised mealtimes, unexplained injuries, falls and even physical and sexual abuse. If you have a loved one in a nursing home or assisted living facility, always be vigilant to notice the signs of abuse and neglect. If a loved one is injured or killed in a nursing home, seek the advice of an experienced nursing home abuse and neglect attorney.

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Bedrail Deaths In Nursing Homes and Hospitals Are Preventable - Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Food and Drug Administration recently issued guidelines to try to end a little-known but not uncommon cause of death of nursing home residents and hospital patients, bedrail entrapment.

Bedrails are supposed to be helpful to patients who use them to position themselves in bed and to keep patients from rolling out of bed. Unfortunately, sometimes patients who are frail, elderly, on mind altering medications, or suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, can become entrapped between a bedrail and the bed mattress, leading to serious injury and even death by asphyxiation. Approximately 350 such deaths have been reported to the FDA since 1995 with 35 deaths being reported in the last year and a half. Federal officials say they believe these are just a fraction of the actual number of injuries and deaths because many nursing homes and hospitals don't know they are supposed to report such incidents. Others don't report them because they are afraid of legal liability or don't want the bad publicity that might result.

The FDA believes these incidents are largely preventable. Gaps bewteen the mattress and bedframe and bedrail must be eliminated with positional devices, repositioning of the mattress or in anothe safe manner. The mattress must be fit tightly against the the bedframe and bedrail to avoid dangerous gaps that trap and injure patients. The new FDA guidelines issued in March, provide instructions to nursing homes and hospitals on how to make complex calculations to check that beds are properly assembled and there are no entrapment dangers.

Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter have handle bedrail entrapment cases in the past and are experienced at litigating these cases.

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Choosing The Right Nursing Home - Tuesday, September 19, 2006

In 1987 a federal law (OBRA) was passed to improve the quality of care in nursing homes and prevent neglect and abuse of residents, particularly frail senior citizens. According to Consumer Reports bad care persists and it's still difficult to find good nursing homes two decades later.

Choosing a humane, well-run nursing home can be one of the most important decisions you will ever have to make. It can also be a decision that must be made under time contstraints. This is especially true where a hospital says your relative must be out in 24 hours. While the hospital will often suggest a particular nursing home in the area, your family may not know whether the nursing home is a good one or provides high quality care.

You can't just rely on federal or state websites to assure you make the right choice. Making the right choice of a nursing home for a loved one requires far more diligence than relying upon governmental agencies which are often understaffed and misinformed by industry professionals operating these facilities. Long term care facilities are sophisticated big businesses skilled at skirting federal and state requirements and competent at clouding government quality care inspectors' prying eyes.

Instead, family members must follow more aggressive steps in selecting the right nursing home:

Identify area facilities. This can be done by searching your state's website information, such as the Florida Nursing Home Guide found at the Agency for Health Care Administration Website in Florida. Or, you can contact your local council on aging for a list of nursing homes. Consumer Reports also suggests you consult their Nursing Home Quailty Monitor to help you cross potentially bad homes off your list.

Visit the homes. Make unannounced visits. Watch, listen, and smell. Visit randomly at different times of the day and night and observe whether the facility has adequate staff to care for the residents, whether the staff are responsive to residents' needs, etc.

Read Facility's Inspection Reports. Ask for and read the home's Form 2567, the facility's state inspection survey, which should be "readily accessible." If you have difficulty obtaining the survery, that's a warning that the facility may be hiding damaging information. A lengthy survey with numerous violations also indicates problems.

Meet the Administration. Meet with the facility's administrator and director of nursing. Get a feel for their philosophy of caring for residents and whether they are compassionate professionals. Ask how long they've been employed at the nursing home and about the level of staff turnover.

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