Illinois Nursing Home Violations Simplified

Chicago, Illinois nursing homes and nursing homes throughout the state are inspected by health inspectors every 15 months.  These health inspection reports are provided to the public through the government's Medicare website.  You may review the Illinois nursing home violations for the 2nd quarter of 2012.  The violations are reported each quarter, with updates on the previous violations for the fines paid or violations removed after further investigation of the events.

Nursing home violations are not included in the health inspection reports.  These nursing home violations are incidents which are in violation of the Nursing Home Care Act.  The government does give each violation a code and to help everyone understand what these codes mean, below is an overview of the Illinois nursing home violation fines and what the codes mean:

• Type AA Violation:  Maximum Fine of $25,000
• Type A Violation: Maximum Fine of $12,500
• Type B Violation: Maximum Fine of $1,100
• Type C Violation: Fine of $250 for 10 or more violations within a survey for the health inspection report

Nursing Home Violations Definitions (in easy-to-understand language followed by the government's official language for the definition of the violation):

• Type AA Violation:  An incident which nearly causes a resident's death (a violation of the Act or rules which creates a condition or occurrence relating to the operation of a facility that proximately causes a resident's death.
• Type A Violation:  An incident which would cause mental or physical harm to a resident (a violation of the Act or rules which creates a condition or occurrence relating to the operation of a facility that (i) creates a substantial probability that the risk of death or serious mental or physical harm, to a resident will result there from or (ii) has resulted in actual physical or mental harm to a resident.

• Type B Violation:  An incident which would likely cause mental or physical harm to a resident (a violation of the Act or rules which creates a condition or occurrence relating to the operation of a facility that is more likely than not to cause more than minimal physical or mental harm to a resident).

• Type C Violation:  An incident which would not cause immediate physical or mental harm but would lead to the probability of physical or mental harm happening (a violation of the Act or rules which creates a condition or occurrence relating to the operation of a facility that creates a substantial probability that less than minimal physical or mental harm to a resident will result there from).

The Department of Public Health in Illinois is required to identify specific provisions of the licensing regulations through rulemaking that are "High Risk."  The term high risk means that the regulation must be inherently necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of a resident.

The nursing home violations are not part of the health inspection reports provided through Medicare's ratings. Caregiverlist's nursing home directory does simply the Medicare ratings and provide the top-line criteria needed when evaluating a nursing home, such as the C.N.A. to resident staff ratio and the nursing home daily costs of a private nursing home room and a shared nursing home room. You may review the Caregiverlist nursing home costs and ratings for Illinois and for each state nationwide on Caregiverlist.com.