Category: Nursing Home

When certain professionals do not report the abuse of an elderly or disabled person, they may be held liable for the injuries or deaths that occur. Mandatory reporting laws impose an affirmative duty on professionals to report nursing home abuse or neglect. Whenever the law imposes a duty, everyone who is affected is required to perform that duty. If someone breaks that duty, he or she is subject to civil and criminal liability.

A total of 54 out of 56 states and territories that were surveyed reported receiving nearly 1.5 million notifications of elder abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of older or disabled adults in 2016. The overwhelming number of incidents combined with the shortage of investigators has resulted in delayed response times and lengthy processing periods, with the average response time taking 4.2 days and the average investigation lasting 47 days.

Insufficient funding and under-staffing, both products of investor greed, are two ingredients that result in increased rates of abuse in nursing homes. According to the AARP, over 1.3 million people live in nursing homes. Studies conducted from 2000 to present have found that the nursing home population will increase in the next few decades. In an industry that is already drastically underfunded and understaffed, this increase is alarming.

A federal government audit found that Illinois leads the country in the total number of nursing home abuse cases. The report recently concluded, examined a period from 2015 to 2016 and found that of 134 cases in which hospitals are treating victims found evidence of physical or sexual abuse or neglect, 17 were from Illinois facilities. Michigan was in second place with 13, followed by Texas with 9, and California with 8. These figures are even more alarming considering that California has more than three-times and Texas more than two times the population of Illinois. Illinois both leads the country in a total number of abuse cases and the number of cases per resident.

The Trump Administration, through announcements released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, illustrated its intent to roll back legal rights enacted under the Obama Administration that made it easier for patients to sue nursing homes for abuse and other violations. Nursing home patients’ rights have come under increasing fire in the Republican-dominated Congress and by the Trump Administration.