Tyler Texas Elder Care Directory

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Texas Poorly Run Nursing Homes

Taylor Care Center in Taylor Texas made the list as one of the worst nursing homes in the state. What a terrible report for Taylor Care for it to come to the state posting them in a shame list on a government website. It just doesn’t get much worse then this. Hopefully Texas will start doing this to poorly run Assisted Living facilities in Texas as well.

The Shame List

Basically what is going on is the Texas state government will be posting on their medicaid and medicare website the nursing homes in Texas that have received the most complaints and infractions by state regulators as a way to shame them for their poor elder care performance. Unfortunately the fines that the state charges the state of Texas elder care facilities is like a slap on the wrist in comparison to the profit they make per resident in these facilties. Care workers in Texas facilities make about 60 cents for every depends diaper they change and every person they shower. Think about this, would you feel happy about your job if you were paid 60 cents for changing a depends diaper? For one thing it smells, you are putting yourself at some health risks and you are dealing with people who can become combative if they have any type of elderly disease like alzhiemers or dimentia. 60 cents per shower and diaper is just not enough to keep quality care workers in a facility to insure no one becomes neglected or abused. Also bare in mind, if the facility has 2 care workers for every 60 residents how are they even able to care for these people. There are elder care facilities that keep a permanent skeleton staff like this so management receives their bonus while the residents suffer and their kids watch their parents savings deplete because of it going to a poorly run elder care facility.

Don’t Waste Your Parents Money On A Bad Facility

It would be better to have a helper you pay come to the house and watch your loved one then put them into some of these facilities. Hopefully the government will consider placing a shame report for assisted living facilities in Texas who have repeated violations. Atria Willow Park as well as Atria Copeland both have multiple and repeated violations with the department of aging and any loving child of an elderly parent should not even consider placing their parent in these facilities.

Nationwide ad campaign exposing Atria

A nationwide ad campaign has been published and is now in several states throughout the nation. The problem with Atria has to do with their corporate policies to save money. Sure they add needed profit to the bottom line as does every business but they take from the elderly needs rather then luxuries.

Here are a number of Atria Willow Parks failings

Here are a few of the problems brought down to each and every Atria to lower level management from the top:

Insufficient staffing

Dangerous medication errors

Residents who have wandered away (one has died because of this in another Atria facility)

Bad food and inadequate food choices

Inadequate response to emergencies

You may click on a link below to read about each facilities complaints and substantiated complaints as well as the details on these complaints.

This is the only type A Assisted Living facility in Tyler Texas at this time

Atria Willow Park fails to comply with the Department of Aging

Atria Willow Park facility fails to comply with licensure standards for type A facilities by admitting residents who are not capable of independently evacuating the facility in an emergency. Atria Willow Park also fails to provide sufficient supervision to prevent resident falls and injuries. There is a ratio of 2 care staff per 60 residents. Not only is this ratio low but the residents that they admit cannot transfer themselves without assistance. Which means that many residents are not properly taken care of. Atria Willow Park was fined $650.00 on November 13, 2006 then fined for the same violations on April 23, 2007 for $1950.00.  These fines are small according to what they are getting away with. Atria is making more profit cutting out staff hours and excepting residents that require advanced care than these small fines.

The investigation

The Investigation held on April 10, 2007 shows that 9 of 11 residents that were sampled did not meet physical requirements to live at an assisted living facility (such as being able to stand, transferring with little assistance). The Executive Director Ron Lewis states on June 7, 2007 one resident was moved into Hospice of East Texas and another was moved out of the community as of May 15, 2007. The other 7 residents still live at Atria but Atria Willow Park concluded “…we feel they are appropriate with the assistance of their physicians, families, and responsible parties through physical therapy.”

My opinion is that is seems like fraudalent activity

In my opinion it sounds like a big fraud for profit. It costs about $4,000.00 a MONTH to live there per resident. So by not transferring residents to a nursing home or hospice where they could receive more care they continually have a full facility at Atria Willow Park and someone is getting very rich from scamming the elderly.

 To read the letter to the District Attorney in Smith county and the report from the Texas Department of Aging click on the below pdf file:

Atria Willow Park