Nursing Home Complaint Center: Reporting Senior Abuse

Introduction

One of the best known consumer advocacy groups in the United States, "America's Watchdog," has created the, "Nursing Home Complaint Center," because the advocacy group is not aware of any other such service in the nation. When America's Watchdog found out that their own loved ones had been neglected in a nursing home they chose to do something about it. While they knew very little about the importance of obtaining legal representation and other types of assistance, they created the service because it is a needed one and because there did not seem to be any other group in America providing such a service.

Main Item

The service through the Nursing Home Complaint Center is free to people who have been abused in nursing homes and their family members. If you are aware of nursing home neglect, abuse, or fraud you can call the Nursing Home Complaint Center and the Center will deliver on its commitments. The Nursing Home Complain Center assists people who have:

• Developed bedsores that evolved into sepsis.
• Been sexually assaulted while in a nursing home.
• Experienced broken bones while in a nursing home.
• Information concerning Medicare Fraud and a nursing home.
• Been diagnosed with sepsis, septic shock, died and the cause was sepsis or septic shock.

When these things occur in nursing homes not only do family members wind up with a loved one who gets neglected by the nursing home, all too often the American taxpayers get stuck with a nursing home bill for care that was never provided.

Signs of Nursing Home Abuse

A number of different signs of nursing home abuse exist that you can look for. The things to look for if a loved one or family member believes nursing home abuse or neglect might have happened can include the following types of things:

• One person in a nursing home injuring another person.
• Heavy medication or sedation of a person in a nursing home.
• Unexplained or unexpected death of a person in a nursing home.
• Septic sores or infections involving a loved one in a nursing home.
• Serious injuries that require emergency treatment or hospitalization of a loved one.
• Any occurrence involving broken bones, particularly a broken arm, a fractured hip, or a broken leg.
• A loved one who is frequently ill and the illnesses are not promptly reported to the person's doctor or the family.
• Rapid weight loss or weight gain without notification of the person's doctor or family members and a change in the person's treatment being provided.
• Any type of injury or death that happens during, or shortly after, an incidence of wandering, to include outside of the facility itself, when staff members are not aware that the person is missing for some period of time.

Nursing Home Employees with Specific Information Regarding Medicare/Medicaid Fraud

The Nursing Home Complaint Center is seeking Nursing Home Executives, Nurses, Doctors, and other Staff Members who have specific proof concerning Medicare or Medicaid over-billing or fraud. There may be a substantial reward for employees of nursing homes who have specific information about over-billing and Medicare or Medicaid fraud. The specific areas the organization is interested in include the following:

• Billing Medicare or Medicaid for treatment that was never provided.
• Billing Medicare or Medicaid for services that were in fact never performed.
• Billing Medicare for testing or patient analysis that were in fact never performed.
• Failure to provide Medicare or Medicaid nursing home patients with the mandatory hours per day of care.
• Billing Medicare or Medicaid for treatment of septic infections that were never performed, resulting in the death of a patient.

The Nursing Home Complaint Center is asking Nursing Home Executives and Employees with substantial proof of Medicare or Medicaid over-billing or fraud to contact them immediately at: 866-714-6466; all conversations are held in the strictest confidence. Medicare and Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse are out of control and people are not receiving the quality of care they deserve, while American taxpayers like you are being left to pay the bills; that is wrong. If you have substantial proof of the facility you work in engaging in Medicare or Medicaid fraud or billing abuse - do the right thing and call the Nursing Home Complaint Center now!

Things Nursing Home Employees Do that are Wrong

As a writer, my past includes more than 25 years of providing hands-on care for others. Working in nursing homes is something I have done and I can tell you some of the things employees from the highest levels down to the average aide have done and been fired for that are just plain wrong. It reached the point where I began taking care of people in their own homes instead.

One of the things aides who somehow think being an aide is an, 'easy job,' and are new do that results in broken bones is grabbing people by the arm and dragging them faster than a person can walk down the hallways of a nursing home. Another thing aides who are new do is to get impatient over having to wait for a shared lift and attempting to physically lift a person into bed; something that results in broken bones as well. Aides need to remember that waiting for a Hoyer or other form of lift is essential where people who have fragile bones are concerned.

Aides also grow tired of having to turn people every couple of hours to avoid bedsores, resulting in bedsores that become worse and can lead to potentially disastrous results. Nurses, on the other hand, may become tired of changing dressings and fail to date the dressing itself, leading to infections and worse. Nurses also fail to change oxygen tubing, thinking, 'oh...the next shift can take care of that.' Doing so can lead to a cascade of supposed, 'next shift's,' and respiratory infections, even death.

Managers in nursing homes become so over-burdened by the paperwork they are presented with each and every single day in nursing homes they often become lax in their duties and fail to fill out required documentation - even documentation that is vital to the health care of the people they are supposed to be there for. The States in America regularly go through nursing homes and find violation after violation in regards to everything from paperwork to the physical provision of health care in these places.

The business offices in nursing homes struggle with the same paperwork overload that nursing managers have to deal with, only on a financial and other business levels. What this leads to is un-done paperwork in regards to the financial affairs of people who are in nursing homes, as well as fraud and billing related to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were never in fact provided or performed. Corporations that own nursing home and other long-term care facilities are far from the least of the offenders.

Corporations that own nursing home and long-term care facilities consistently, 'white-wash,' over their transgressions and those of their employees, sending in new personnel to, 'clean up,' buildings. They bargain with State representatives in order to keep struggling building open. In the meantime, corporate leaders fly to Italy on private Lear jets. In this writer's opinion, America needs to make a massive move towards the provision of in-home care and independent review of in-home care agencies.

You can contact the Nursing Home Complaint Center with information anytime at: 866-714-6466.

Author Credentials:
Thomas C. Weiss is a researcher and editor for Disabled World. Thomas attended college and university courses earning a Masters, Bachelors and two Associate degrees, as well as pursing Disability Studies. As a Nursing Assistant Thomas has assisted people from a variety of racial, religious, gender, class, and age groups by providing care for people with all forms of disabilities from Multiple Sclerosis to Parkinson's; para and quadriplegia to Spina Bifida. Explore Thomas' complete biography for comprehensive insights into his background, expertise, and accomplishments.