Nursing Home and Assisted Living Facility Lawyer

Virginia attorney Joshua D. Silverman discusses selecting a nursing home lawyer. At Williamson Petty LC, our lawyers understand that nursing home cases are about more than the physical injuries or loss of life. They are about treating our seniors with dignity and holding the nursing home industry accountable for neglecting our most vulnerable citizens.

MR. SILVERMAN: When someone's looking to select a nursing home lawyer, there are several things that they really need to think about. Nursing homes are very different than other types of medical facilities. The lawyer really needs to understand that nursing homes are subject to federal regulations, state regulations, and policies and procedures. And it's critical that the lawyer understand the difference between the nursing home and an assisted living facility, so they know what rights the patient has. When patients go into a nursing home, they are going there to be treated with dignity in the final years of their life. And while other types of cases, lawyers may be valuing what's reasonable compensation based on life expectancy, that's not how a nursing home case should be viewed. A nursing home case really requires understanding that these are like our children. They're adults, they're seniors, but they're very much like our children. They are helpless, they require constant care, and they deserve the best of care. And when they don't receive that, that's what the case is about. It's about their dignity. We'll have people that will come into our office with an absolutely tragic situation, where they deserve justice. And then, we hear from the nursing home, we have no assets, we have no insurance. You're wasting your time. And that's what's critical, is that the nursing home lawyer is not somebody who is going to give up, who is going to go look and find those assets, to see if they are hiding it in a different corporation. And that is what happens, very commonly. To find out what really happened to a nursing home patient, and an assisted living facility patient, you can't rely on what the facility tells you. You've got to be willing to get your hands dirty. And from my perspective, that does not mean hiring an investigator to go out and do that work. I go out and do it myself, in most cases. And what that may mean is, in a case where a patient dies of hypothermia, low body temperature; I've gone climbing through attics of assisted living facilities with engineers, to find out what really happened. I've gone to the richest and the poorest of neighborhoods to interview people, to find out what really happened to the patient. We talk to former employees, who are often the best source of information, as to what really happened in the facility. That's where you find the truth. You don't find the truth by just reading the medical records, and asking the nursing home for their version. Nursing homes are almost always for-profit facilities, with few exceptions. And what that often means is, when a patient is getting poor care, it's because it is cheaper for them not to have enough staff, not to have the necessary equipment. And the reason I'm so passionate about fighting for nursing home patients is I want to make it expensive for them to provide bad care, because that's what's going to really turn around the nursing home industry. When the nursing home industry figures out that it is cheaper to provide good care for their patients, patients will be treated with dignity, and our seniors will be treated the way we want them to be treated.