RISK MANAGEMENT

Mitigate litigation exposure, reduce losses, and create protection for potential risk issues

Negotiated Risk Agreements mitigate risk exposures, such as falls and other risk events which are often the source of liability for senior living communities. Not every fall or other incident can be prevented even with a plan of care and interventions.

A well-drafted negotiated risk agreement (NRA) with residents and their families  is useful for opening up communication about care and expectations. Communities using Negotiated Risk Agreements (NRA)  must ensure that the NRA is clearly documented, included in the resident’s care plan, and reviewed periodically according to policy.

DEFENSE STRATEGY

Anchoring damages through early case evaluation

Corporations, including those in the aging services industry, are seeing an increase in aberration verdicts. A recent report revealed the median nuclear verdict, or those greater than $10 million against corporate defendants, rose from $21.5 million in 2020 to $41.1 million in 2022.

Anchoring is a strategy plaintiffs use to elicit exorbitant damage awards by giving a specific reference point, or “anchor,” to use when evaluating damages in a lawsuit.

Senior living facilities must employ defense strategies to combat this trend and preserve resources to support their core mission of high-quality care and services for residents.

To support early evaluation and value analysis, a review and assessment of the medical records must be completed.  Excelas has experienced health information management, allied health, and nursing professionals to assist defense counsel by coordinating medical record management functions to allow counsel to focus on strategies to combat these aberration and nuclear verdicts.

COVID

Managers at veterans facility ruled immune from COVID prosecution

A federal appeals court has reaffirmed a decision that released top managers at a state-run long-term care facility from liability in a worker’s lawsuit alleging that constitutional rights to a safe workplace were violated during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Absent clearly established law, Appellees could not know beforehand that their alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak at Soldiers’ Home would violate Appellant’s rights,” the opinion added. “It would be inhumane not to feel a sense of outrage over [the situation], or a sense of deep sympathy for [those who passed away]. But our question is one of federal law, not one of sympathy. … As such, Appellees are entitled to qualified immunity.”

A tangle of COVID-19-related lawsuits have confronted providers in jurisdictions around the country, with mixed results.

Excelas, LLC continues to support healthcare organizations with the COVID-19 Comprehensive Integrated Timeline Tool which incorporates a healthcare organization’s COVID19 Response and Patient / Resident Medical Record Chronology into Federal and State Guidance Timelines.

PERFORMANCE METRICS

Excelas October Performance Metrics

As of October 31, 2023 Excelas has
Reviewed

• 19,057,535 pages
• 14,227 medical records

Invested 8,734 hours in software development
Assisted 380 national clients & firms