Struggling with a nursing home abuse settlement and want to know how much your case is worth? This blog has you covered!
For most of us, a nursing home is where our loved ones can receive professional care when their health fails.; However, it’s a totally different sight for others. Given the number of expensive nursing homes in the U.S and the amount of Medicare reimbursements they receive, there is a great profit margin when it comes to running a nursing home. Simply put, today, nursing homes are an industry through which many investors have made a lot of money. like every other business, when a businessperson purchases a nursing home, the first thing that they do is lower overheads by reducing the number of staff, resulting in management issues and cases of nursing home abuse or neglect.
If a nursing home resident suffers an injury, abuse, or dies due to negligence, in such cases, the family has every right to pursue a civil lawsuit to compensate for their loss. Read on to learn more about nursing home abuse settlements. How much is your case worth?
Categories of Injuries among Nursing Home Residents
Regardless of what the case – nursing home neglect, nursing home abuse, or elder abuse – in the end, it’s the patient who suffers the most. Nursing home abuse can be categorized into four sub-categories:
- General Neglect
An elderly patient can develop serious complications or injuries when not properly taken care of or neglected. Medical problems resulting from general neglect include dehydration, medication errors, urinary-tract infections, malnutrition, and even elopement from a nursing home facility.
- Falls
According to law, nursing homes are required to develop custom care plans according to the needs of every patient. One of these areas is evaluating the possibility of a patient’s fall. When treated as a business by most, nursing home neglect can result in a facility failing to provide fall precautions, leading to severe injuries such as fractured hips, subdural hematoma, brain injury, and broken bones.
- Wrongful Death
In case a nursing home resident dies due to medical complications or from an acute injury, the deceased’s family has every right to file a lawsuit against nursing home neglect or nursing home abuse to compensate for their losses.
- Bed Sores
If the nursing home staff fails to keep patients (especially bedridden ones) dry, clean and mobile, the patients are at a high risk of developing wounds on their heels, buttocks, back of thighs, or other bony parts of the body. Note that severe nursing home neglect and advanced bedsore (decubitus ulcers or pressure sores) can be extremely painful and can lead to medical complications like osteomyelitis, sepsis, and even death.
Elements of a Nursing Home Abuse and Nursing Home Neglect Lawsuit
Do you want to successfully prosecute a nursing home abuse or nursing home neglect case? Keep the following pointers in mind to understand your claim:
- The nursing home was legally responsible for providing the patient with utmost care.
- The nursing home failed in providing the prescribed care.
- The resident suffered injury or died only as a result of the nursing home neglect.
Nursing Home Abuse Settlement – What to Expect?
Retaining an attorney to represent your family member or family is the first part of pursuing a nursing home abuse settlement case. Your main target should be securing the services of a lawyer who has experience in handling similar cases. Once you have successfully retained a nursing home abuse attorney, your nursing home abuse settlement case will proceed as follows:
- Record Review and Compilation
A lawyer will ask you to get all the medical records of your loved one from the nursing facility. The nursing home abuse settlement lawyer will then take these records to a doctor or nurse to get them reviewed (to know how and why these errors were made).
- Filling a Nursing Home Abuse Laws Suit
Note that most nursing home neglect or nursing home abuse cases require some kind of litigation to get them resolved. This is where your attorney comes in. They will do all the paperwork to prepare a legal lawsuit and then file it in the appropriate court. The purpose of this lawsuit is to tell the legal authorities that the resident was injured or died due to errors made by the nursing home staff.
- Discovery
The discovery phase of a nursing home abuse settlement can be divided into written discovery and oral discovery. In the first stage, both parties exchange written questions and request specific documents related to the inquiry. However, in the second phase, oral depositions are taken from any professional involved and both the involved parties.
- Trial
As soon as the discovery phase of the nursing home abuse settlement is completed, a legal statement regarding the matter will be set for trial. During a trial, your attorney will most definitely call you to testify your observations related to the care of the nursing facility and the injury or death. Overall the trial process can be stressful and filled with uncertainty.
How Can Negligence Cause Damage to a Nursing Home Abuse Case?
Several factors come into play when finalizing a nursing home abuse settlement. Having an experienced lawyer by your side will help you find the most profitable solution for your nursing home abuse or nursing home neglect case. Unlike common personal injury cases, which may result in causing economic damage to the facility, most nursing home abuse settlements are due to the careless conduct of the nursing staff and its impact on the victim.
Non-economic and economic damages in a nursing home abuse settlement are determined by most jurisdictions by considering the punitive damages, disability related to the injury, suffering, and pain to the resident (or victim) from the injury, and medical expenses for the past and future care in the nursing home facility.
Nursing Home Neglect Case | Other Factors that Impact Valuation
Other factors that may influence the nursing home abuse settlement case include:
- Past and future medical care
- The extent of the injury to the patient
- The jurisdiction where the claim can be brought
- Availability of punitive damages
- Quality of life and age of the individual ta the time of the injury
- Conduct of the nursing home
- Insurance coverage of the nursing home
Final Thoughts
According to health affairs, the average nursing home abuse settlement is over $400,000. However, it can vary based on the aforementioned factors. Looking for a nursing home abuse settlement lawyer? Contact us today!