Elder Law

Will Country Nursing Home Cited for Negligence

By Levin & Perconti

Embassy Health Care, a nursing home outside of Chicago in Will County, was recently challenged by nursing home regulators for providing inadequate care to the residents at the facility.

ABC 7 News recently discussed the problems the facility faces after federal inspectors uncovered troubling incidents of poor nursing home care. Specifically, the Wilmington nursing home was found to have neglected patients leading to the development of pressure sores. As has been explained often on this blog, pressure sores (also known as bed sores or pressure ulcers) are painful and harmful skin lesions that are almost always caused by inadequate care.

In addition, regulators noted that building maintenance problems were ignored by the facility. A fundamental component of proper resident care at nursing homes is the assurance that the actual building itself is safe and secure. Embassy was failing at this basic task.

After finding these problems, regulators explained that if they were not adequately corrected, the facility would lose all of its federal funding near the end of August. Embassy is a for-profit facility that relies heavily on Medicaid funding in its quest for revenue. Failure to receive those funds would be extremely damaging to the facility's survival.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti fully support all federal efforts that hold our nursing homes accountable for the care that they provided. Many fail to realize that the funds used to pay for the care of many nursing home residents come directly from the government in the form of Medicare and Medicaid payments. That means that it is the taxpayers who foot the bill for these facilities. In that way, inadequate and fraudulent care at these facilities is not only a problem for the abused resident, but also a swindling of everyone's hard-earned tax dollars.

Whether you have family member at a failing nursing home or are just a concerned citizen, we encourage everyone to seek out trained legal professionals if they suspect substandard nursing home care. The proper treatment of our elderly resident can never be compromised.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on August 13, 2010 (boomark / email).