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Traction Law Group We are a dedicated team of personal injury lawyers committed to helping victims seek justice! Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.

At Traction Law Group, we understand that finding the right lawyer can be a daunting task. Our dedicated attorneys work hard to provide our clients with fast and responsive legal representation. With a focus on nursing home negligence, funeral home negligence, and medical malpractice, we have the knowledge and skills to handle even the most complex cases. We believe in working closely with our clients to understand their needs and goals, and we take pride in our efforts to help achieve the best possible outcomes.

10/15/2026

Picture a daughter in a nursing home lobby, waiting for a tour. She picked this facility based on its star rating. That rating leans on inspections.

Federal law says a standard health inspection, the regular check state inspectors do at every facility, has to happen within 15 months of the last one.

In October, the Long Term Care Community Coalition analyzed the latest federal data. It found 1,018 nursing homes whose last standard health inspection was more than two years ago. That is about 1 in 14 across the country.

A lot can change in two years. An inspection from two years ago does not prove a home is safe today.

This is an oversight gap. States have to send inspectors in on schedule, and CMS builds the ratings on what they find. When that does not happen, the record goes stale and problems can go undiscovered.

The good news is that the date of a facility’s last inspection is public. Most families never think to look.

If you are considering a nursing home for your loved one, check the date of its last standard health inspection on Medicare’s Care Compare, and weigh how long it has been.

Follow Traction Law Group for more on keeping loved ones safe in long-term care.

More resources in our bio: BedsoreGuide and NursingHomeComplaint.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

10/13/2026

Sixty-eight minutes. That is how much nursing care the average nursing home falls short, per resident, every single day.

What the data shows. On October 7, 2026, the Long Term Care Community Coalition (LTCCC) released its latest national nursing home provider data report, covering 14,690 federally certified nursing homes. Based on resident acuity, the average nursing home should provide about 4.99 hours of nurse staffing per resident per day. The average facility reported 3.86. That gap is about 68 minutes, every day, for each resident.

Those minutes are the call light that rings too long. The turn that helps prevent a bedsore. The person who sits with your mom while she eats.

It is getting worse. In LTCCC's February 2026 report, 87 percent of nursing homes fell below expected staffing. In October, more than 9 in 10 did. Facilities identified as having serious quality problems averaged only 3.49 hours per resident day, and nearly 98 percent fell below expected staffing. About 294,000 residents live in homes in the federal Special Focus Facility program, on its candidate list, or carrying a one-star overall rating.

Ownership matters too. LTCCC found that chain-affiliated facilities averaged 3.70 hours per resident day, and about 96 percent of chain facilities with available data fell below expected staffing.

How to check your parent's facility. Go to Medicare's Care Compare at medicare.gov/care-compare and search the nursing home by name. On its page, tap View Staffing Information. Find the total number of nurse staff hours per resident per day, and compare it to the national average shown right under it. If your facility is below that, it is under an average that is already about an hour short of what most residents need.

Staffing is an ownership and facility decision. It is not the people on the floor, who are often working short-handed themselves.

LTCCC's October report uses CMS data processed August 1, 2026, so it is a recent snapshot, not a real-time measure of any single facility.

At Traction Law Group, we share helpful information and statistics on keeping your loved ones safe in long-term care. Be sure to give us a follow.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

Sources: LTCCC alert (October 7, 2026): https://nursinghome411.org/alert-provider-info-oct2026/ · LTCCC Ratings & Info, October 2026: https://nursinghome411.org/provider-data-oct2026/ · Medicare Care Compare: https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/

More from Traction Law Group:
🔹 BedsoreGuide.com — a guide to bedsores and pressure injuries: the stages, the warning signs, and what to do if a loved one has one. https://bedsoreguide.com
🔹 NursingHomeComplaint.org — how to file a nursing home complaint, with state-by-state steps, Adult Protective Services contacts, and ombudsman directories. https://nursinghomecomplaint.org

10/08/2026

In Illinois, Louisiana, and Missouri, roughly one in three nursing homes is flagged as what the Long Term Care Community Coalition calls a problem facility.

Illinois: almost 38 percent. Louisiana: almost 35 percent. Missouri: just over 34 percent. They are the only three states above one in three. Nationally, it is about one in five.

Here is what problem facility means in LTCCC’s data: a home with Medicare’s lowest overall rating, one star, or a home in the federal Special Focus Facility program or on its candidate list. Those categories are not the same thing.

Illinois stands out even on one-star alone. 228 of its 666 homes were rated one star, not counting Special Focus candidates. That is more than one in three.

Before you choose a nursing home, or assume the one your parent lives in is doing fine, check its federal record. Look past the overall stars. Ask about inspection findings, staffing, and what the facility has done to fix identified problems.

A low rating does not prove your loved one has been neglected. A higher rating is not a guarantee of safety either. When a third of the homes in a state are flagged, families deserve more than a reassuring brochure.

Source: LTCCC October 2026 data release, using CMS data processed August 1, 2026.

Follow Traction Law Group for more on keeping loved ones safe in long-term care.

More resources in our bio: BedsoreGuide and NursingHomeComplaint.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

10/05/2026

If a nursing home tells you it can handle hospital-level care, check the staffing first.

A Pennsylvania nursing home reportedly just did its first bronchoscopy on site, a procedure usually done in a hospital. The Long Term Care Community Coalition looked at that home’s public record.

As of LTCCC’s May 2026 review: Medicare’s lowest overall rating. An immediate jeopardy citation on its latest inspection. Zero hours of medical director time in the last quarter of 2025. Registered nurse staffing 74 percent below what its residents need.

It is not just one home. LTCCC found a New York operator approved for blood transfusions, and a Texas operator offering them too. Both are running registered nurse staffing more than 50 percent below what their residents need.

Fewer hospital trips can be good for frail residents. LTCCC says regulators should review and approve a home before it takes on this kind of care.

Until then, it is on you. If your parent needs complex care, check the home’s RN staffing. Ask whether the medical director is actually there. LTCCC says a health inspection rating below four stars deserves a closer look, especially when a home advertises hospital-level services.

A service in the brochure is not the same as the staff to do it safely.

Follow Traction Law Group for more.

More resources in our bio: BedsoreGuide and NursingHomeComplaint.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

10/04/2026

Federal investigators found nursing homes giving residents a diagnosis they did not have. Schizophrenia. Here is why.

Medicare tracks how many residents get antipsychotic drugs, and that number factors into a facility’s star rating. Residents diagnosed with schizophrenia are not counted.

When the HHS Inspector General reviewed 40 nursing home inspections, it found instances of facilities inappropriately diagnosing schizophrenia to mask antipsychotic misuse and artificially inflate their star ratings. That is a sample, not a national rate.

A companion report found facilities giving these drugs to residents with dementia to manage their behavior for the benefit of staff, despite the FDA’s warning that they may increase the risk of death.

If your loved one is in a nursing home, ask for their full diagnosis list and medication list. If schizophrenia suddenly appears late in life, ask who diagnosed it and when. Your loved one has the right to be told the risks and benefits of a drug, and the right to refuse it.

Follow Traction Law Group for more on safety in long-term care.

More resources in our bio: BedsoreGuide and NursingHomeComplaint.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

10/03/2026

If a Medicare Advantage plan says no to your parent's rehab after a hospital stay, you do not have to treat that as the final answer.

In a report issued June 8, 2026, the HHS Office of Inspector General reviewed how 19 Medicare Advantage companies handled prior authorization requests for admission to a skilled nursing facility, the short-term rehab many people need after a hospital stay. In June 2024, those companies collectively denied 12 percent of requests, with individual company rates ranging from 0.4 percent to 23 percent.

Patients and their providers appealed only 18 percent of those denials. When they did, the plans overturned 95 percent in the patient's favor. OIG said that extremely high overturn rate indicates some patients were initially denied medically necessary care, and raises concerns about the denials that were never appealed.

Requests from people already living in nursing homes were denied 40 percent of the time, compared with 11 percent for all other enrollees.

OIG also found that naviHealth, a contractor that is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, processed half of all requests and denied 14 percent of them, a higher rate than plans reviewing internally or other contractors. When those denials were appealed, plans overturned 97 percent.

OIG made three recommendations to CMS. CMS did not explicitly concur or nonconcur with any of them.

If you get a denial, get it in writing, ask your doctor whether they will support the appeal, and file it. These findings apply to Medicare Advantage plans; traditional Medicare works differently.

At Traction Law Group, we share recent information affecting long-term care and rehab across the country. Be sure to give us a follow.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Source: HHS Office of Inspector General, OEI-09-24-00331, June 8, 2026: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2026/medicare-advantage-organizations-overturned-nearly-all-appealed-prior-authorization-denials-for-skilled-nursing-facility-admission-raising-concerns-about-initial-denials/

More from Traction Law Group:
🔹 BedsoreGuide.com — a guide to bedsores and pressure injuries: the stages, the warning signs, and what to do if a loved one has one. https://bedsoreguide.com
🔹 NursingHomeComplaint.org — how to file a nursing home complaint, with state-by-state steps, Adult Protective Services contacts, and ombudsman directories. https://nursinghomecomplaint.org

09/30/2026

Altarum’s August 2026 health-care price brief found nursing-home care prices up 3.6% year over year in July 2026. That was second only to dental among the major categories Altarum examined. The figure is a national price index, not the precise bill every family pays.

A higher monthly bill does not, by itself, tell you how much nursing care a loved one receives or who is available to make clinical decisions. Four questions help families look past the invoice.

How many total nursing hours does the facility provide per resident, per day? That number is hours per resident day, or HPRD: paid nursing hours divided by residents receiving care. It is a starting point. Total hours do not show what type of nursing staff provides the care.

How much of that care is provided by registered nurses? A 2026 BMC Nursing study of 14,993 U.S. nursing homes, covering 399,820 facility-quarters from 2018 Q4 through 2025 Q2, found that within the same facility over time, higher RN staffing and a greater RN share of nursing hours were associated with lower rates of unplanned hospitalization and outpatient emergency-department visits among long-stay residents. The authors are clear: these observational findings do not support causal inference.

Study averages: 3.80 total nursing HPRD and 0.65 RN HPRD (about 39 minutes).

Who will assess your loved one when their condition changes? RNs generally have broader responsibilities for comprehensive assessment, clinical decision-making, care planning, supervision, and coordination of care. Ask whether an RN is on site, who assesses a sudden decline, who contacts the clinician, and what happens overnight and on weekends.

When residents go to the hospital, what does the facility do differently when they come back? A hospital visit is not automatically a sign the nursing home did something wrong. Sometimes it is necessary. If the same problems keep happening, ask whether the care plan changed: monitoring, medications, fall precautions, hydration, infection, or supervision.

Follow Traction Law Group for more nursing home information most people never know about.

Sources: Altarum, August 2026 HSEI Price Brief. He et al., BMC Nursing (2026) 25:752, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05186-7.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

More from Traction Law Group:
🔹 BedsoreGuide.com — a guide to bedsores and pressure injuries: the stages, the warning signs, and what to do if a loved one has one. https://bedsoreguide.com
🔹 NursingHomeComplaint.org — how to file a nursing home complaint, with state-by-state steps, Adult Protective Services contacts, and ombudsman directories. https://nursinghomecomplaint.org

09/29/2026

Prosecutors say a 34-year-old nursing home resident choked at lunch and was left without help for nearly 90 minutes.

On September 17, 2026, the New York Attorney General announced the indictments and arrests of three staff members at The Grand at Mohawk Valley, a nursing home in Ilion, Herkimer County, in connection with the August 23, 2025 death of a 34-year-old resident.

What prosecutors allege:
🔹 The resident was known to be at high risk of choking, and her family had stressed the need for one-on-one supervision.
🔹 Her one-on-one supervision, including while eating, was ended two days before her death.
🔹 She choked during lunch in the dining hall. A dietary aide allegedly saw her in distress and did not call for help, and a nurse allegedly did not check on her when she was face down on the table.
🔹 She remained in the dining hall for nearly an hour and a half before other staff moved her to her room and called 911.

These are criminal accusations, not findings of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. One choking incident does not by itself prove neglect or a care-plan violation, and every resident's needs and orders are different.

The questions every family can ask:
🔹 Has my loved one been assessed for swallowing problems?
🔹 What provider orders and care-plan precautions are current?
🔹 Does the plan require supervision during meals?
🔹 Who is responsible for that supervision on every shift?
🔹 If supervision changed, who approved it, and when was the family told?

Depending on an individual clinical assessment and provider orders, a resident with swallowing difficulty may have meal precautions such as modified foods or liquids, positioning, feeding assistance, or supervision. After an emergency, families can ask for the incident report, the timeline, the medical record, and what the facility changed afterward. Federal rules require nursing homes to develop and follow a person-centered care plan, and residents and their representatives have the right to take part in care planning.

In any emergency, call 911.

Save these questions for your next care-plan meeting. Be sure to give us a follow.

Sources:
🔹 New York Attorney General press release, September 17, 2026: https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-announces-indictments-and-arrests-herkimer-county-nursing
🔹 The indictment (People v. Stocking et al., Herkimer County Court, dated September 14, 2026):https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/new-york-v-mary-stocking-et-al-indictment-2026.pdf
🔹 Federal nursing home care-planning and resident-rights rules, 42 C.F.R. Part 483: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-42/chapter-IV/subchapter-G/part-483

More from Traction Law Group:
🔹 BedsoreGuide.com — a guide to bedsores and pressure injuries: the stages, the warning signs, and what to do if a loved one has one. https://bedsoreguide.com
🔹 NursingHomeComplaint.org — how to file a nursing home complaint, with state-by-state steps, Adult Protective Services contacts, and ombudsman directories. https://nursinghomecomplaint.org

This is general information, not legal or medical advice. It describes allegations announced by the New York Attorney General. The charges are accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

09/25/2026

Your mom's nursing home roommate could matter as much as the facility you picked.

That is the finding of a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research: "Patient Peer Effects: Evidence from Nursing Home Room Assignments," by Alden Cheng (NBER and the University of Illinois) and Martin B. Hackmann (UCLA), released December 2025. The authors studied 2.6 million nursing home stays in more than 7,200 U.S. facilities between 2000 and 2010, using which beds happened to be open at admission to compare otherwise similar residents. A working paper is circulated for comment and has not been peer reviewed, so treat it as strong evidence, not the final word.

What it found:
🔹 Almost 80% of residents are assigned a shared room on admission.
🔹 Compared with a private room, being placed with a roommate who has Alzheimer's or a related dementia raised 90-day mortality by 2.1 percentage points, about 14% of the baseline rate. The authors say that is comparable to moving to a facility one full standard deviation worse in quality.
🔹 Residents with dementia benefited from a cognitively healthy roommate: a 5.1 percentage point drop in 90-day mortality. A private room did not help them.
🔹 Residents without dementia were not harmed by a roommate with dementia, and they did benefit from a private room.
🔹 The effects were about twice as large in facilities with below-median nurse staffing. The authors' explanation: a cognitively healthy roommate notices a fall or confusion and alerts staff, filling a gap when staffing is thin.
🔹 A simple room assignment rule that pairs residents with and without dementia could lower 90-day mortality by at least 0.8 percentage points without additional staff, according to the paper's simulations.

Three questions to ask when your parent moves in:
1. How do you assign roommates?
2. Does the roommate have dementia?
3. If your parent does not have dementia, is a private room available?

What this does not mean: the data run from 2000 to 2010 and describe averages across millions of stays. The study does not say any particular roommate caused any particular outcome, and it does not replace an assessment of the facility itself. Staffing, inspection history, and complaint records still matter.

Read the paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w34538

More from Traction Law Group:
🔹 BedsoreGuide.com — a guide to bedsores and pressure injuries: the stages, the warning signs, and what to do if a loved one has one. https://bedsoreguide.com
🔹 NursingHomeComplaint.org — how to file a nursing home complaint, with state-by-state steps, Adult Protective Services contacts, and ombudsman directories. https://nursinghomecomplaint.org

Be sure to give us a follow.

Source: NBER Working Paper 34538, Cheng and Hackmann, December 2025.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.

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