DO YOU SUSPECT ABUSE OR NEGLECT? Contact Us for a Free Consultation

by

Five-Star Nursing Homes May Not the Best Indicator of Care

Are Medicare star ratings good predictors for the quality of care at nursing homes?  According to a recent article in the New York Times, a facility with a five-star rating may not be what one would expect.  In fact, many five-star facilities have receiIMG_29490008ved fines for injuries related to nursing home neglect.

Rosewood Post-Acute Rehab, a nursing home located in a Sacramento suburb, received a five-star rating from Medicare.  The nursing home “bears all the touches of a luxury hotel, including high ceilings, leather club chairs, and paintings of bucolic landscapes.”  According to the article, getting a five-star rating—the highest possible—is not easy.  Only about one-fifth of all nursing home in the U.S., about 3,000 total, hold this distinction.

Continue reading

by

Many of us have heard about assisted living facility reforms pending before the California legislature, as well as those aimed specifically at residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs).  But are those reforms sufficient to ensure that California seniors are safe from elder abuse?  According to a recent story from KQED’s State of Health, many elder justice advocates in California do not believe the reforms are going to do enough.

Recent History of Elder Abuse in San Diego

According to Deborah Schoch, an advocate with the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting, the number of assisting living facilities in our state essentially doubled over the last 25 years.  For whom are these faciwoman-65675_1280lities designed?  According to Schoch, they are intended for older, healthy adults who are “relatively independent.” Yet many of these facilities have taken in patients who require much more extensive levels of care, and assisted living facilities “are not designed to deliver skilled nursing care.”

Continue reading

by

It’s no secret that California assisted living facilities have been in the national news due to reports of nursing home abuse and neglect.  Indeed, over the last year, elder rights advocates have emphasized the need to make information about nursing homes and assisted living facilities readily available to older adults and their loved ones.  Without such information at our fingertips, how will we know which facilities are safe and can provide a high quality of care for our elderly parents?  According to a recent story from KPBS San Diego Public Radio, this kind of information remains pretty difficult to access.

iPhone search

Lacking Internet Information About California Assisted Living Facilities

According to the recent KPBS story, it’s not easy to access information about the quality of nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Southern California.  For example, Lorid Macri’s mother suffers from dementia, she told KPBS.  At the beginning, Macri cared for her mother.  However, the stress of caring for a dementia patient became “overwhelming.”  And when Macri herself needed hospital care, she realized she needed to find an assisted living facility where her mother could receive quality care.

Continue reading

by

Southern California Insurance Agent Charged with Financial Abuse

Elder abuse comes in many forms, from physical violence to financial fraud.  A recent article in Consumer Affairs reported that a licensed insurance agent in Southern California was recently arrested fo  elder financial abuse.  The insurance agent, John Paul Slawinski, 59, was charged with “five felony counts of financial elder abuse and five counts of burglary.”  What did he do?  Specifically, the charges allege that he “ripped off five senior citizens for more than $2 million through the sale and surrender of investment annuity products.”

Feel free to use this image just link to www.rentvine.com
Earlier in the summer, the California Department of Insurance received complaints about Slawinski and decided to launch an investigation.  The complaints claimed that Slawinski had convinced five different senior citizens to give up annuities and investments, promising that he could get them higher returns on their money.  Yet Slawinksi never purchased additional annuities or investment products with the seniors’ money, and he never gave back the funds, either.  In other words, he “conned the victims into giving him money to invest for them.”

Continue reading

by

When our elderly loved ones require care at a nursing home or assisted living facility, we need to balance the costs of a facility with the quality of care we know they’ll be receiving.  It’s necessary to remember that nursing home abuse and neglect can occur at even the most high-end, expensive facilities, so it’s important to do our research.  But what about older Americans who can’t afford to comparison shop?

Old Guy
If you have concerns about your elderly loved one’s safety and care in a nursing home or assisted living facility, it’s important to talk with an experienced San Diego nursing home abuse lawyer.  At the Walton Law Firm, we have years of experience handling elder abuse claims in Southern California and can speak to you today.

Rates of Emotional and Physical Abuse Among Seniors

Continue reading

by

A Booming Hospice Industry in America

Did you know that about half of all Medicare patients who die “will do so as a hospice patient”?  According to a recent article in the Huffington Post, just ten years ago only about 25 percent of all Medicare patients died in hospice care.  Now, in the mid-2010s, that number has doubled.  And it affects Medicare spending, too.  Indeed, in 2014, Medicare is likely to spend about $15 billion on hospice care alone, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.  That number has risen dramatically from the year 2000, when that cost was under $4 billion annually.

Yet, despite the fact that hospice care costs billions of dollars each year, the government doesn’t put an equivalent effort into hospice regulation, according to the article.  To be sure, a recent investigation discovered that “the average hospice hasn’t been certified—meaning fully inspected—in 3 ½ years.”  And some American hospice facilities, 759 to be exact, haven’t received certifications “in more than six years.”  Keep in mind that, under federal law, nursing homes must be inspected much more frequently—every 15 months—and incidents of nursing home abuse and neglect occur nonetheless.  What does this mean for the well-being of patients in hospices that haven’t been inspected recently?

Continue reading

by

Many of us in the San Diego area have seen commercials for liquid nutritional supplements, particularly those marketed toward older adults.  According to a story in the New York Times, these bottles have become “staples in older people’s refrigerators, in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and in hospitals.”  As such, it’s only logical to assume that these liquid supplements are healthy and can even benefit the elderly.

However, a recent set of recommendations from the American Geriatrics Society suggested that these drinks aren’t as beneficial as their manufacturers would like us to believe.  Indeed, replacing elderly adults’ meals with these liquid supplements may even rise to the level of nursing home neglect.

Ensure

Dangers of Boost, Ensure, and Other Supplement Drinks for the Elderly

Continue reading

by

With more than two out of five Americans caring for their aging parents—many of whom do so because they cannot afford to pay for other elder assistance—it’s often difficult to find time for both work and caregiving.  Indeed, according to a recent article in Forbes, many children who act as caregivers worry that, without assistance from their employers, their aging parents may face nursing home neglect.  Lately, however, more employers are “now providing help for employees who feel that they just have to ‘suck it up’ in managing this care and their careers.”

Old Man
What’s the relationship between elder abuse and workplace assistance?  Many factors could play into this correlation, including:

  •      When employees don’t have time to properly locate elder care resources, they make uninformed decisions about nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, or even in-home nurses.  Help from an employer can mean the difference between a care facility with a strong patient record and one with a history of nursing home abuse violations.
Continue reading

by

Collaboration on Dementia Awareness and Abuse

Old Lady
Do you have a parent who currently suffers from Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia?  These degenerative brain diseases are difficult not only on patients, but also on their family members and caregivers.  In response to elder abuse advocates’ concerns about educating and empowering family members of those with dementia, a number of organizations have teamed up to provide a series of “webinars” this summer.

According to a recent press release from the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the ACL will join the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in hosting a series of three webinars in July, August, and September.  The organizations have collaborated in order to “increase knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia,” as well as to provide “resources that professionals in the public health, aging services, and research networks can use to inform, educate, and empower community members.”  More education about the risks associated with dementia care can help family members and caregivers to quickly spot and report signs of elder abuse.

Continue reading

by

Global and Local Awareness About Aging and Elder Abuse

Old Guy
Earlier this month, San Diego County’s Aging Summit, which focused on Alzheimer’s disease and caregiving issues, occurred just as the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) and the Administration on Aging launched the eighth “World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.”  The two projects represent both global and local initiatives to educate family members, caregivers, and the public generally about important issues that older adults face today, as well as the prevalence and risk factors for elder abuse.

Nursing home abuse and neglect is an important issue in California, particularly as we await potential changes to the law surrounding residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs).  At the same time, however, elder abuse is a nationwide—and indeed, a worldwide—concern that affects us all.  If you have questions about how you can help an older adult who has sustained injuries because of elder abuse, don’t hesitate to speak to an experienced San Diego elder justice advocate.

Continue reading
Justia Lawyer Rating
Super Lawyers
BBB Rating A+
Avvo Rating 10.0
Elder Justice Advocates
Consumer Attorneys California
AV Preeminent badge
Contact Information
North County Office
950 Boardwalk
#304
San Marcos, CA 92078
Toll Free: 866.607.1325 Local: 760.571.5500 Fax: 760.571.5501
San Diego Office
2169 1st Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
Toll Free: 866.607.1325

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2025, Walton Law Firm
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design