The Dickson Firm, L.L.C. represents nursing home residents and their families in cases against the owners and the operators of nursing homes throughout the State of Ohio.
This article was written by Ohio nursing home attorney, Blake Dickson.
Cleveland nursing homes are regulated. Virtually all nursing homes in Cleveland receive funds from Medicare or Medicaid. As a result, they are overseen by the Ohio Department of Health. The Ohio Department of Health comes out approximately once a year and performs what is known as an Annual Survey of each nursing home.
If there are problems with the nursing home, the nursing home is cited. The nursing home must then file a Plan of Correction. If that Plan of Correction is accepted, the nursing home must then follow through with that Plan of Correction.
The next time the nursing home is surveyed, the problems must be resolved. If the nursing home does not file a Plan of Correction in response to a citation it can be shut down. Further, the Ohio Department of Health can shut down any nursing home in Cleveland that it does not feel is providing appropriate care to its residents.
How to Identify Bad Nursing Homes in Cleveland
If you go to www.medicare.gov/NursingHomeCompare you can look for nursing homes either by name, or by geographic location. You can see the 5 star rating of the nursing home. You can see its Overall Rating, its Health Inspection Rating, its Staffing Rating and its Quality Measures rating. You can also see if the nursing home has been fined in the past.
At The Dickson Firm, we keep track of Special Focus Facilities. These are the worst nursing homes in the State of Ohio. Some of the worst nursing homes in Ohio are in Cleveland:
Another good source of information on nursing homes is http://ltc.ohio.gov/NursingHomes. This is the website for the Ohio Department of Aging. This website has lots of good information about a number of facilities. If you access the Long-Term Quality Navigator you can search Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities.
What Happens if a Complaint is Made Against a Cleveland Nursing Home?
In addition to Annual Surveys, any time there is a complaint about a Cleveland nursing home, the Ohio Department of Health will send a surveyor to the nursing home to investigate the complaint. If someone you love has been abused or neglected in a nursing home and you are making a complaint, you should work closely with the Ohio Department of Health to provide them with whatever information they need. On the home page of our web site there is a red button that will take you to the Ohio Department of Health web site where you can make a complaint about a nursing home.
The Ohio Department of Health will not investigate complaints made more than a year after the subject incident. Therefore, if you have a complaint about the nursing home, you should make that complaint promptly.
If you have enough of a concern about a nursing home to make a complaint to the Ohio Department of Health about that nursing home you should think seriously about moving your loved one to another nursing home.
If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1-800-OHIO LAW as it would be our pleasure to talk with you and help you in any way that we can. We represent victims and their families across Ohio.
