If you think a loved one has been neglected or abused in a nursing home or assisted living facility:
- File a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Division of Quality Assurance by calling 800-642-6552 or going to http://1.usa.gov/VJcMnu.
- Contact the Wisconsin Long Term Care ombudsman’s office at 800-815-0015.
- Document the full nature and extent of the resident’s injuries and any details about the suspected mistreatment or neglect. If possible, take photos.
- Ask for a complete set of the resident’s medical records.
- Ask for a copy of the incident report that the facility prepared after the accident or injury.
- If there’s a death involved, have a full discussion with the physician or medical examiner.
- Note the full names of all staff members you’ve spoken with regarding the resident’s care.
- Contact county-level Adults-at-Risk helplines. For a complete list, visit http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/aps/.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
- If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
- If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram)
- Don’t sell the story — it may not be marketed as an individual product.
- Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
- Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
- Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
- Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
- If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Andy Hall, executive director, at ahall@wisconsinwatch.org