STANDING UP FOR YOU WITH SKILLED ADVOCACY

With the elderly and many people with disabilities so vulnerable to COVID-19, every nursing home needs to do everything it reasonably can to prevent the entry or spread of the disease. In a previous blog post, however, we discussed how 20% of U.S. nursing homes are facing severe personal protective equipment shortages or staffing shortages, or both.

People in nursing homes make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. However, they account for 43% of all COVID-19 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Our loved ones are very vulnerable to this disease, and adequate staffing and personal protective equipment (PPE) are essential to their care. A new study found that

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, residents and staff of long-term care facilities account for almost 45% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. Yet testing for the virus has not reached levels that experts say are necessary to stem the spread of the virus. Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, says that only seven

Even with restrictions on visitors, COVID-19 has run through nursing facilities like wildfire. As we discussed recently on this blog, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that almost 26,000 residents of American nursing homes have died from COVID-19 and another 60,000 have become sick. The CMS recognizes, however, that these numbers are incomplete.

With the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 above 100,000, we now have information about how many of those deaths occurred in nursing homes. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), nearly 26,000 residents of U.S. nursing homes have died from COVID-19 and over 60,000 others have become ill. Those numbers are incomplete,

“This is the greatest threat to nursing home residents that we have seen in many years, if not ever,” a long-term care medicine specialist told NBC News. It’s the COVID-19 pandemic he was talking about, and it is putting nursing home residents at grave risk. The elderly are more likely than others to suffer serious

The statistics on falls among the elderly are startling. Every second of every day, somewhere in America, it happens. An older person falls down and often gets hurt. For many who fall, the injuries start a downward spiral that becomes difficult or even impossible to reverse. What can you do to protect against this happening

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General has just released a report on hospice care provided through Medicare. After synthesizing patient records and Medicare patient data from more than a decade, the Inspector General concluded that, while most patients can rely on hospice care to relieve their suffering, some hospice providers are

When facing advancing age and illness, most people prefer to stay in their own home as long as possible, rather than go into a care facility. To respond to this need, millions of Americans provide care to aging or ill family members. It’s difficult work, even in the best of circumstances, with medical appointments, daily

A recent report reveals that dozens of Tennessee nursing homes are failing to adequately provide for and protect their vulnerable residents. A Shelbyville nursing home in particular, Glen Oaks Health and Rehabilitation, had previously been accused of providing “grossly substandard and/or worthless care” to its patients. Federal regulators at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid