How to Look Up Nursing Home Violations in Florida
Making the decision to admit your loved one into a nursing home is an incredibly difficult one, particularly when there are so many headlines about nursing home abuse. However, if your loved one requires care that you cannot provide, you may not have a choice.
There are steps you can take to ensure that your loved one is properly cared for and treated with dignity and respect. Before admitting your loved one into any facility, you can first check to determine if they have previous violations, which is an indication that it may not be the best place for them. Below, our Tampa nursing home abuse attorney explains how to do it.
Are Nursing Home Violations Common in Florida?
Nursing home violations are much more common than many people think. Florida has 701 nursing home facilities and of them, 196 had serious deficiencies as of May 2024, according to ProPublica. Additionally, 437 of them had infection-related deficiencies. In total, these violations have resulted in $27.6 million in penalties. Some of the most common violations are as follows:
- Failure to protect residents from abuse or neglect,
- Failure to honor patient’s right to refuse, request, or discontinue medical treatment,
- Failure to provide basic life support,
- Failure to ensure that nurses have the appropriate training to protect the well-being of the residents, and
- Failure to ensure a facility is free from hazards or provide adequate supervision to prevent accidents from occurring.
How to Search for Nursing Home Violations
Fortunately, there are many ways to search for nursing home violations before admitting your loved one into a facility. These are as follows:
- ProPublica: This website allows you to search nursing home deficiency reports, COVID-19 vaccinations, fines, and whether a specific facility has been deemed a ‘special focus facility’ for having a number of serious violations in the past.
- Medicare: Through the Medicare website, you can also search for a specific facility. After entering basic details, such as the name of a facility, you can search general ratings and find specific information about the home’s staffing, health inspections, COVID-19 vaccination rates, and more.
- Florida Agency for Health Care Administration: This website allows you to search for a specific facility and find any fines issues, whether investigations have been conducted, and any violations the home may have committed.
Searching for violations prior to admitting a loved one is important, as it can better help you make an informed decision.
Contact Our Nursing Home Abuse Attorney in Tampa for Legal Help
If your loved one has been the victim of abuse or neglect, it is essential that you speak to a Tampa nursing home abuse attorney. At Kohn Law, we know the devastation that this type of wrongdoing causes and we are dedicated to helping families make things right. We can put our experience to work for you, too. Call us today at 813-428-8504 or contact us online to schedule a consultation with our knowledgeable attorney and to get the legal help you need.
Sources:
medicare.gov/care-compare/?providerType=NursingHome
projects.propublica.org/nursing-homes/findings/all_deficiencies?state=FL
