Boca Raton nursing home abuse lawyer

Published on: August 16, 2016

Federal Health Officials Intervene in Fight Against Social Media Abuse on Nursing Home Residents

Nursing home employees who take and distribute demeaning photos or videos of patients on social media platforms should be forewarned: The feds are getting involved.

These images, as our nursing home abuse lawyers have detailed, have included humiliating depictions of residents who are unclothed, covered in their own waste or even deceased. In some cases, the images show actual nursing home abuse. Most of the images are uploaded to a platform called Snapchat.

Following a journalism non-profit ProPublica series on the troubling issue, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal government agency responsible for oversight of nursing homes in the U.S., has issued a memorandum to state health departments indicating:

Ensuring all nursing homes have clear policies that forbid staffers from taking demeaning photos of residents;
Requiring state health officials to swiftly launch an investigation into any complaints of such treatment;
Calling on nursing homes to report any workers who violate these policies immediately to state officials or other licensing agencies.

It is the state agencies that typically enforce and mete out the discipline in these cases. The federal intervention is noteworthy because these are the agencies that pay for the majority of nursing home residents’ care. Failure to abide by these directives could be a breach of patients’ basic rights to dignity and quality treatment, which in turn could be grounds to deny federal payment. Continue reading →

Published on: November 9, 2015

Florida Nursing Home Choking Lawsuit Alleges Wrongful Death

By Dean Freeman

A man from Delray Beach is suing a Boca Raton nursing home for negligence, alleging the staff contributed to the untimely death of his 72-year-old mother, who was staying at the facility while recuperating from pneumonia.

According to a news report from the local ABC News affiliate, plaintiff asserts his mother suffered from a condition that made it very difficult for her to eat solid foods and to swallow. While plaintiff was talking to his mother over the phone one afternoon, he heard her mumble something about “choking.” Then the line went dead.

He immediately called the nursing home staff to alert them his mother was in trouble. But no one answered the line. Fire and rescue records show there was eventually a phone call to emergency responders from the patient’s room. However, the caller hung up soon after. Dispatchers called back right away, but a front desk receptionist said she wasn’t aware there was any problem. Emergency Medical Responders decided to go anyway. When they got there, staffers weren’t taking any action, such as performance of CPR. Instead, they were “standing around” the patient’s bed. She had apparently not been breathing for approximately five minutes. Continue reading →

Published on: November 9, 2014

Nursing Home Lawsuits Push Bad Operators Out of Business

By Dean Freeman

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal decried the increase of nursing home abuse lawsuits resulting in six-figure settlements or verdicts, prompting some in the industry to pack up and close shop.

The Journal is a decidedly pro-business publication, and took the tack that this series of events was a bad thing.

Despite the grim picture this and other media outlets paint, personal injury attorneys are not anti-business. Rather, we’re against bad businesses. When a for-profit nursing home promises top quality care to vulnerable, aging residents, it rakes in huge revenues – both from private pockets and the government. When it then fails to deliver on that care, resulting in serious harm or death, that company should probably no longer be in business. At the very least, there should be a sincere evaluation of the firm’s core values and direction.

Continue reading →