By Dan Noll on November 10th, 2017 in
Absolutely. You can absolutely report nursing home abuse, even following the death of a loved one. The Illinois Department of Professional Regulation actually investigates nursing homes quite often in the state of Illinois. Basically what you would want to do is get a copy of your medical records, or your loved one’s medical records, and you’d file a complaint with the IDPR. They have complaint forms online and in paper form that you can mail in. What you’ll want to do is if you or a loved one has been injured in a nursing home is get a copy of the complaint form and mail it in. Generally I advise clients to wait a couple weeks and then call to find out who the investigator is at the IDPR that’s going to be investigating the claim. You’ll want to get a copy of your medical records. A certified copy is always best. Give them to that investigator to review together with any other evidence that you have. Other types of evidence can be text messages, voice recordings, photographs, and any other tangible documents that can be provided to the investigator to help them make an informed decision in your case.
The investigators are going to go out and interview witnesses, usually the nursing home staff and physicians, as well as any other witnesses who may have seen what happened that caused the injury that you’re concerned about. If the nursing home investigation comes back founded, and that means that the investigator found that the nursing home has engaged in some sort of neglect, or abuse, or other wrongful act, you’re going to want to consider either litigation to recoup your costs and any permanent injuries to your loved one, or of course some kind of settlement with their insurance company. This is really kind of a glorified insurance claim. All nursing homes have insurance in the state of Illinois, so you’re going to want to move forward with reporting nursing home abuse. The other thing you can do, of course, is if it comes back not founded is at least you’ll have that sort of closure to know what happened to your loved one.