In this series, we’ve focused on the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) used by nursing homes to evaluate patients. A critical factor of the RAI is the Minimum Data Set, or MDS.

When Medicare reimbursement became linked to resident assessments, MDS coordinator roles became more vital to nursing homes.

Our Chicago nursing home abuse attorney explains what you should know about the role of MDS coordinators and Medicare reimbursement.

MDS coordinators are typically registered nurses who oversee the assessments and paperwork in order to guarantee proper completion. The MDS coordinators work with an interdisciplinary staff to produce the written and electronic documents necessary for Medicare reimbursement. The MDS coordinator also assures that each resident’s MDS is coded properly so that the nursing home is financially able to provide all necessary services.

In addition, MDS coordinators can greatly affect the quality of care of the residents.  This is crucial in preventing Illinois nursing home neglect. Completing a thorough and accurate comprehensive assessment enables the nursing home to provide appropriate plans of care for each resident. The MDS coordinators can provide a global picture of each resident and can spot weaknesses in their plans of care.

If you have questions about the quality of care of your loved one in a nursing home facility, contact an Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer if you live near Chicago. Nursing home abuse attorneys are experts at helping prevent Illinois nursing home neglect, and obtaining just compensation when standards are not met.

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In Illinois, nursing home negligence lawyers find it important to help educate families of their clients on patients’ rights according to the law. If awareness increases among nursing home residents and their loved ones, chances are the incidents of Illinois nursing home neglect will decrease.

We’ve learned earlier in this series that the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) is a key tool used to help monitor nursing home residents’ health and well-being.

The theory behind the RAI is that a strong link between the first and second components: Minimum Data Set and Resident Assessment Protocols. Adding the third component – Care Planning – is essential in providing each resident with a solid approach to prevent avoidable decline, in addition to building current strengths. Meaningful care planning takes into account the unique traits of each resident which translates into providing good quality of care and quality of life. The OBRA ‘87 requires that each nursing home resident have a comprehensive plan of care. This plan is based on information gathered by the MDS and any further review and assessment.

Plans of care for nursing home residents must include measurable objectives and timetables to meet the resident’s medical, nursing, and mental needs identified in the comprehensive assessment. When a nursing home fails to meet these guidelines in and around Chicago, nursing home abuse attorneys can help protect residents and ensure they are given the highest quality care and service.

Illinois nursing home negligence lawyers help ensure the services provided under the plan of care will attain or maintain the resident’s highest possible physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being. The plans of care are to be periodically reviewed and revised when necessary after each assessment.

If you have questions about possible Illinois nursing home neglect or abuse, or about the Resident Assessment Instrument, contact a Chicago nursing home abuse attorney today.

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In the previous post, our Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer described the first of three key components to the RAI, or the Resident Assessment Instrument, which helps nursing home facilities adequately monitor its patients upon intake and throughout the course of their stay.  This component is called the Minimum Data Set (MDS), which is a standardized set of essential clinical and functional status measures.

Specific responses to MDS items alert the nursing home to potential problems for the resident, and are referred to as “triggers“.  These “triggers” are associated with specific questions on the MDS. If one or any of MDS elements is triggered, the resident is identified as someone who has or may develop specific functional or clinical problems.

These triggers help identify conditions for additional assessment and review, and prompt the nursing home to further evaluate a resident using Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs). Triggers indicate that specific clinical factors are present that may or may not represent a condition that should be addressed in the plan of care. The MDS responses that define triggers are specified in each RAP.

The RAPs assist in the development of plans of care and aid in preventing Illinois nursing home neglect.  There are 18 RAPs in Version 2.0 of the Resident Assessment Instrument. They include items such as cognitive loss/dementia, ADL function/rehabilitation, psychosocial well- being, nutritional status, dehydration/fluid maintenance, and pressure ulcers.

If you believe you or someone you love were the victim of Illinois nursing home neglect, or your rights were violated, contact a Chicago nursing home abuse attorney as soon as possible. A competent Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer can help ensure your loved one is being given the care he or she most certainly deserves.

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In the previous post, our Chicago nursing home abuse attorney explained the basics of the RAI – Resident Assessment Instrument. The RAI is used by nursing homes in the state of Illinois to evaluate residents and provide quality, standardized care. By following the guidelines set by the RAI, attentive staff can help prevent Illinois nursing home neglect.

The first of the three key components of the RAI is the Minimum Data Set, or MDS. The MDS 2.0, contains a standardized set of essential clinical and functional status measures. Nursing homes are required to “conduct initially and periodically a comprehensive, accurate, standardized, reproducible assessment of each resident’s functional capacity.”

All residents must be completely assessed within the first 14 days after admission, again promptly following a significant change in their physical or mental condition, and at least once every 12 months. Additionally, all MDS assessments must be reviewed at least every 3 months to assure continued accuracy.

If you or someone you love are a resident of a nursing home facility, it is crucial you understand your rights according to the law. If you believe your rights have been violated, you should contact an Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer.

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In Illinois, nursing home negligence lawyers are regularly fighting for higher standards of care in nursing home and long term care environments. Illinois nursing home neglect can often be prevented if certain precautions are made. The more involved and educated a patient’s family is, the less likely abuse or neglect will occur.

One important guideline to understand is the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI). The Nursing Home Reform Act mandates that nursing homes use this clinical assessment tool to identify residents’ strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and needs in key areas of functioning. The RAI is designed to help nursing homes thoroughly evaluate residents and provides each resident with a standardized, comprehensive, and reproducible assessment.

The RAI was developed by a research consortium under contract with the the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and consists of three key components (which we will further define in subsequent posts):

1. Minimum Data Set (MDS)
2. Triggers and Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs)
3. Utilization Guidelines

The RAI is intended to be completed by an interdisciplinary team of nursing home staff who gather facts about the residents’ strengths and needs. The team should ideally include dieticians, speech, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, pharmacists, and nurses. The attending physician is also an important participant.

Federal regulations require each individual who completes a portion of the RAI to sign, date, and certify its accuracy. Regulations also require a registered nurse sign and certify that the assessment is complete. Upon completion of the assessment, the information guides the team to prepare individualized care plans for each resident.

If you believe a loved one’s care may be in violation of the standards set by the Resident Assessment Instrument, contact an Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer as soon as possible.

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One of the most troubling factors of Illinois nursing home neglect or abuse is that once recognized by a governmental agency, fines for citations may not ever be issued – damaging any sort of true accountability on the part of the facility.

There are no standard fines for citations that place residents “at risk” within the Assisted Care program; little oversight, no accountability and shamefully few protections for the resident who lacks family members close by to be their advocates.

The fines that are assessed for the increasing number of new and reoccurring long-term care citations (crimes against human beings) are already whittled down to pennies on the dollar or never collected at all. Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys suggest this is a contributing factor to the state’s inability to afford a more expanded Ombudsman program giving families and patients adequate help and representation when problems of Illinois nursing home neglect or abuse occur.

Those who could otherwise manage care within their own home environment through true cost-savings actions by the state, such as more funding for at-home assistance, are sacrificed so that the financial health and welfare of commercial and corporate interests can prevail, allowing for an expanded age-driven marketplace that preys on human life while the state remains blindly silent.

Assisted Living facilities must be held accountable for the care of their residents. For more information, contact an Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer.  If you believe you or someone you love were the victim of Illinois nursing home neglect or abuse, contact a Chicago nursing home abuse attorney immediately.

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Illinois nursing home negligence lawyers are working tirelessly to help prevent Illinois nursing home neglect. While neglect and abuse are shamefully common in the nursing home environment, they often run even more rampant in Assisted Living facilities. Government oversight for Assisted Living facilities is practically non-existent, and certainly far more lenient than regulations for nursing home facilities. In Chicago, nursing home abuse attorneys are warning the public about this oversight.

Illinois currently has three categories of Assisted Living environments and it is not clear how increased oversight will be managed as patients are shuffled, or by whom. There have been many cases in which facilities have advertised themselves as Assisted Living environments without the necessary license to do so. But according to advocates for the aging, the Department of Public Health has yet to issue any fines against such places.

Some facilities fail to maintain safe medication administration records or adequate emergency contact and medical history information. Many rely upon cheap labor consisting of inexperienced staff, often non-English speaking help that are ill-quipped and poorly trained; unable to understand a resident’s needs or communicate properly to emergency personnel when a crisis arises. Worse yet, there are few laws that require more, and even fewer state representatives to perform routine evaluations.

The laws currently on the books (although routinely ignored by state appointed agencies, such as the Dept. of Aging and even the governor’s office itself) protecting long-term care residents, do not apply to Assisted Living. Laws governing and protecting Assisted Living residents and their quality of care are either non-existent or much more lenient under the State.

Federal laws governing long-term care, for example, requires that every resident be provided a comprehensive care plan that includes monitoring and updating, outlining limitations and special needs and how those limitations and needs will be met. Within Assisted Living the process is defined as “plan for care” and is far less regulated with no mandatory checks and balances in place. Furthermore, the state is currently failing miserably in their attempt to simply provide adequate inspections at long-term care facilities, let alone add the growing number of less-regulated Assisted Living establishments to their under-funded, over-taxed staff levels.

The state has left families, as well as disabled and aging individuals with little choice but to succumb to care that often offer little more than public storage of human beings. Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys see this as a crisis that needs to be addressed and made public.

If you have questions about Assisted Living regulations or Illinois nursing home neglect, contact an Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer as soon as possible.

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The state of Illinois will soon find more and more patients on Medicare and Medicaid being cared for within Assisted Living facilities. Because of this, Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys and other advocates for the aging and disabled and are tossing out a “red flag” warning to families. Rather than increasing in-home care funding (which would allow individuals to remain in their own home longer, or to receive care within traditional long-term facilities) critics believe the move to smaller “assisted living” environments is one based primarily upon money and political interests rather than quality care.Illinois nursing home negligence lawyers have already seen too many cases fall into the cracks of an already badly broken system, increasing the likelihood of expanded abuse and neglect. In Illinois, nursing home neglect is already an epidemic. But neglect and abuse within an assisted living facility can be equally detrimental, and may not be as easily recognizable.

Assisted living care typically requires a resident to be able to manage their basic needs, such as dressing themselves, simple hygiene, and joining group meals. The danger is that once placed into a smaller, mostly semi-dependent environment, caregivers may be reluctant to recommend transfer to intermediate or long-term care placement if and when, the health and independence of the resident declines, as profitability depends on occupancy (or maintaining a “full house”).

The question is, how far will a resident sink into physical and/or mental despair before being transferred to a more suitable care environment? Oversight of Assisted Living care facilities is even worse than that of long-term care establishments.

From the outside, the smaller more intimate environment can at first seem appealing. Fewer residents suggest that more time and care to an individual’s needs will be given, while the “home-like” environment also congers up images of a traditional family setting where dining and daily activities are shared with others.

But the idea behind such a seemingly loving and giving environment quickly loses its appeal when one realizes that oversight by the state to protect residents of Assisted Living is practically non-existent .

In our next post, our Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer will explain the factual data regarding Assisted Living environments, and how current laws and lack of oversight are failing to protect our aging citizens.

For more information about Illinois nursing home neglect and abuse, contact a Chicago nursing home abuse attorney.

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Special “Ask the Attorney” Feature

In our ongoing effort to provide education and support for family members of patients in nursing homes, we bring you another question answered by our Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer.

Question: “My mother lives in a nursing home and she wanders around all day because she has dementia. I’m afraid she’ll walk out of the facility. What can I do?”

Illinois nursing home neglect lawyer: This is a great question. I say that because Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys handle a lot of these types of cases. A resident (because of Alzheimer’s or dementia) will often begin to wander, because a facility may not be providing proper services.

You should talk to the director of nursing, or the administrator for the facility. You can also talk to the activities director, or even social services, to find out what type of programs would be more properly suited to your loved one to be involved with, to help decrease the wandering.

There are other things to look for to make sure the facility is providing proper services and is not guilty of Illinois nursing home neglect. The nursing home should assess each resident (when they are admitted) for risk of wandering, related to Alzheimer’s or dementia. Some medications can also cause an increase in confusion.

It’s also important to look at prior history of wandering, or often forgetting whereabouts. If a patient is at risk, the nursing home should utilize preventative measures such as alarms or electronic monitoring devices. It’s also possible they should move an at-risk patient to a different room so that he or she can be better monitored by the nursing staff. You should also check that the nursing staff appears adequate – that is that the facility maintains a proper staff-to-patient ratio to ensure quality care.”

If you are concerned with the devastating results of Illinois nursing home neglect and abuse, you should contact a Chicago nursing home abuse attorney if you live in or around Illinois. Nursing home negligence lawyers can help you know what to look for to recognize signs of abuse or neglect, and help you or your loved one achieve appropriate compensation if in fact abuse or neglect has already occurred.

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Special “Ask the Attorney” Feature

Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys continue their quest to help family members of nursing home residents prevent Illinois nursing home neglect.

Our Illinois nursing home negligence lawyer answers today’s question:

“The nursing home where my dad lives leaves the bed rails on his bed up when he is in his bed. Is this considered a form of restraint?”

llinois nursing home negligence lawyer: “Bed rails are considered a form of restraint, both under Federal and State laws. However, if a resident requires the bed rails to be up (and as long as there is a doctor’s order), then it is not considered a restraint.

“What we look at, and what the state looks at when they do their surveys, is if the bed rails are up 24 hours a day, and the resident is in the bed 24 hours a day, and they are using it to confine the resident to the bed as opposed to keeping the resident in bed for medical or safety issues.

“It is very important for you to understand that bed rails can indeed be a form of physical restraint. You can look for other things as well - such as hand mits, restrictive chairs (such as a “Geri Chair”) with lap trays, vests that a nursing home might put on a resident to tie them to their chairs or bed, wrist restraints, ankle restraints, or bed sheets that are tucked so tightly a resident can’t move while in bed. Look for wheelchair placement next to a wall that would prevent a patient from getting up. These are all signs of Illinois nursing home neglect, they are all signs of abuse, and they are all signs that a nursing home is using improper restraints.”

Help your loved one receive the care he or she undoubtedly deserves. If you are concerned with Illinois nursing home neglect, talk to the Director of Nursing at the facility. Keep a watchful eye on the physical condition of your family member, and be aware of visible signs of abuse or neglect, especially in the form of unnecessary physical restraint.

If you believe you or someone you love is the victim of Illinois nursing home neglect or abuse, contact a qualified Chicago nursing home abuse attorney immediately.

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