Connecticut Injury Firm

We spoke with Paul Levin about how to document and report suspect neglect in nursing homes, what to record, importance of medical records, who to speak to, and when to involve an attorney. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm Alison de Murz.
My guest today is Paul Levin from the Connecticut Injury Firm.
We've had a couple of conversations and our newest conversation
today is how to document and report suspected neglect at
nursing homes.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Big, big issue. We don't want to go in there
and start to turn ourselves from family members into investigative reporters,
right but especially in the early days, or if there's
not a lot of frequency of visits during a particular week,
you really do need to pay attention. If you see
something on their body that's different, I would not only inquire,
I would take a picture. I would ask them, and

(00:38):
then I would ask the care team, where did this
come from, why did it happen, what's being done about it.
Sometimes it's something that's not visual, it's just noticeable. It's
the way they're speaking. They're more timid, they're confused, they're
holding back. So you really want to go in there
and be a good listener, which you generally are because
it's your parents or your grandparent and that's why you're there.
But you do want to pay attention and it's the

(00:59):
same approach. Why are you quiet today, mom? Why what's
going on? Are you eating well? Is everything okay? Is
everybody treating you okay? Is there a problem? And then
whatever the answer is. If you don't fully accept the answer,
then you ask the care team. You don't have to
do it in front of them. You can take them
aside and you can say, hey, anything going on this
shift or last shift? Do you notice anything different? And

(01:22):
if you don't get anything, you can elevate it to
the nurse supervisor and say, you know, mom or dad,
they're quiet, they seem a little off. Have they been sick,
have they been eating? Have they been normal? You want
to also just take a look at them and just
see if their hair is done, if they smell good,
just to notice it if they're being neglected, frankly, because
if you're not being cared for in that way properly,

(01:43):
then there's probably other things that are not being done right.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So how can you help families understand their options?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, first of all, if you choose a good nursing
home to begin with, by going to Medicare compare and
making sure that the five star ratings if they're supposed
to be get five stars and they're getting two. Maybe
your relatives shouldn't go to that particular facility. But if
you're already in a facility that you know is good,
and you know that they should be beating their standards
of care because they're professionals, they seem well staffed. By

(02:13):
the time you need a lawyer, it's probably the situation
is elevated to the point where there's a serious concern.
If they failed down and broke their hip and they
needed surgery, now you know you need a lawyer. Or
they had an infection, they wound up septic in the
hospital and you're fighting for their lives. You probably need
a lawyer, even if it's too late and you lost

(02:34):
their relative and they were old, and it's like this
is the way life goes. I still think there's value
in pursuing accountability because you can protect some other people.
You may not care about getting a civil award or
a settlement. You might or you might not, but in
a way, it's part of the function of regulating the
integrity of these environments. People learn from their mistakes when

(02:56):
it costs them, and these facilities and the insurance companies
that ensure them they take it more seriously and they
enforce standards when there's a cost to not doing that.
So they're very afraid of professional negligence cases being brought
against them. It's bad for their reputation, and it forces
them to spend money on things like staff training, staffing,

(03:16):
modernizing their facilities, and their access to better medical care
or prompt medical care. All of these things really do
improve the standards for the next set of relatives that
are going to be in these facilities.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yes, so important. I'm speaking with attorney Paul Levin from
the Connecticut Injury Firm. For more information, go to connecticutinjuryhelp
dot com. Thank you so much for being here, for
caring and for serving the community.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh thanks Allison.