What would you do if someone you love - perhaps a parent or a grandparent - is in a nursing home or an assisted living facility and you've begun to notice certain irregularities? Perhaps their living quarters aren't being kept clean. Or maybe they aren't getting the attention they deserve.
What would you do if you saw that they had unexplained bruises? And how would you feel if you began to notice that some of their possessions started to disappear?
All of these are some of the many examples of nursing home abuse. What most people try to do when they find such abuse is document the circumstances and talk with the supervisory personnel at the facility in which their loved one is residing.
Often that does help and the problems are rectified.
However, sometimes it is necessary to go outside the long term care facility to get the help you need; help that will ensure the safety and well being of the one you love.
If you feel that you need outside assistance then ombudsmen as well as state and federal agencies are there to provide the help that you want. However, keep in mind that the quality of their help could vary. It all depends on the individual you are speaking to, how well trained and funded they are, how heavy their workload is, and other such variables.
Your State's Ombudsmen
Each of the fifty states is required to have an ombudsman program. This program handles complaints about elderly care. The ombudsmen are the advocates for improvements in long term care facilities.
Usually ombudsmen are volunteers. Since they visit assisted living facilities and nursing homes on a regular basis, they may be familiar with the facility that your loved one is at.
Ombudsmen should know about the types of problems that have already been reported at the facility in question. And they have the legal authority to investigate your complaint as well.
Anything you disclose to an ombudsman is supposed to be kept confidential unless you have given them the permission to share your situation and concerns with others. In order to find the ombudsman for your area you can do a search on your favorite Internet search engine for the "long-term care ombudsman" in your specific state.
In addition you can file a formal complaint with your state's licensing agency. The names of the agencies and their procedures will vary from one state to another, as will the amount of service you will get.
Whether the agency in your state will be able to legally adhere to the time limit for initiating and completing their investigation could very well depend on the number of complaints they get and the amount of personnel that they have to deal with these situations.
If you have encountered an emergency in the long term care facility your loved one is in - for example, assault, physical violence, rape, or sexual abuse - then you should immediately contact the police, sheriff and the local Adult Protective Services.
On a federal level, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare oversee state inspections for the long term care facilities that accept Medicaid or Medicare.
So you should also contact your state's Attorney General's Office to find out if your state has a Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. You can report both individual employee's actions as well as the facility to this unit. The unit's job is to investigate neglect and abuse in Medicaid certified long term care facilities.
If you have tried contacting your Ombudsman and government agencies and have found that you are not getting what you want then your best recourse could be to get professional legal help.