Navigating Your Nursing Home Abuse Case: Tips from Giroux & Associates’ St. Petersburg Attorney
If your loved one has suffered mistreatment in an assisted living or similar facility, our St. Petersburg nursing home abuse attorney can provide needed counsel and offer suggestions on how to increase the value of your case. Obtaining the appropriate records is one way to back up your claims.
Incident Documentation
According to the law, nursing homes must document injuries, accidents and similar incidents. However, these reports might not be included in your loved one’s file, so you will need to specifically ask for them.
Additional Records
You might be able to find these records by asking the following departments:
- Business records, including budgets, incidents, and thefts
- Nursing logs, including schedules, assignments and patient updates
- Dietary information, including workers’ schedules, menus, and nutritional information
- Environmental services, including cleaning schedules, worker assignments, and laundry
- Maintenance, including repair requests, water temperature information, and preventative maintenance
- Rehabilitation, including cautions regarding falls or accidents, and physical therapy information
- Social services department, including family notes and required Medicare/Medicaid documents that need to be submitted four times per year.
Our St. Petersburg nursing home abuse attorneys can suggest other records that could substantiate your lawsuit.
Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests, such as sodium tests, blood urea nitrogen tests, urinalysis tests, white blood cell count tests, and others provide additional documentation regarding the status of the nursing home. For example, your loved one might have suffered from a serious yet untreated ailment detected through these tests. Our St. Petersburg nursing home abuse attorney understands the relevance of lab work and how it can affect your case.
Nursing Home Personnel Records
The nursing home will resist the release of personnel records and cite privilege and confidentiality in their defense. Our lawyers will work to show a clear connection between your loved one, the incident in question, and the employee’s records. However, you might need a court order before the nursing home complies as they will likely not want to hand over this critical information.
Contact Our St. Petersburg Nursing Home Abuse Attorney
For help with your case, call the St. Petersburg nursing home abuse attorneys at the law firm of Giroux & Associates Inc. at (727) 895-5399.