Problems at Wellmore Assisted Living Facilities?

It’s challenging when your aging loved one needs more care than you can provide. That’s often the case with busy families, so you search for a South Carolina facility that meets your loved one’s needs. Despite your efforts to investigate potential residential locations, you can’t always discover current issues or predict future problems. When you find what you consider the perfect supervised care, you don’t want to consider the potential risk for harm.

South Carolina families choose Wellmore assisted living for their aging loved ones because their three locations purport to offer caregiving services many young families can’t manage on their own. All Wellmore assisted living facilities claim to provide beautiful living spaces, meals, medical attention, and varying levels of personal care. They say they offer quality residential caregiving choices.

Sadly, when caregiving staff provides abusive, neglectful, or negligent care, they traumatize their residents.

If your loved one endured trauma while living at a Wellmore facility, don’t wait for the administration to accept responsibility. Contact an assisted living attorney at the Hughey Law Firm to uncover the facts and protect your family’s legal rights. We’ve helped other people like you recover compensation when Wellmore facilities harmed our clients. Let us see if we can do the same for you.

Wellmore Assisted Living in Lexington, Charleston, and Tega Cay

Wellmore of Lexington, LLC is a senior residential care business located in Lexington, South Carolina. They specialize in assisted living, memory care & skilled nursing facilities in Lexington, Charleston, and Tega Cay. Their attractive assisted living complexes appear far more residential than institutional.

Locating and Reviewing Wellmore’s Publicly Available Records

If you don’t dig too deeply into publicly available records, you’ll believe that these facilities always live up to their marketing promises. As with all senior care operations, those promises only tell you part of the story. If you’re considering a move-in or your loved one complains about their care, you must investigate as thoroughly as possible. With Wellmore or any other assisted living facility, you should never assume that caregivers treat your loved one the way you do.

CMS Inspections and Surveys

The Medicare.Gov Care and Compare tool helps families find senior care, but that’s not all it does. If you need more information about a Wellmore facility, you can find it in Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services inspection surveys, ratings, reviews, and penalty data. CMS summaries show ratings but they don’t provide links to relevant incident reports. Unfortunately, CMS doesn’t always publish surveys and pending penalties for cases under appeal.

ProPublica Nursing Home Inspect Project

ProPublica.Org doesn’t have access to CMS’s nonpublished records. They do provide information that you might have difficulty finding otherwise. They have a separate data page for each CMS-certified assisted living facility in South Carolina and nationwide. Facility pages include links to elusive CMS survey reports. They also analyze nursing home data and summarize critical findings.

Wellmore of Lexington Assisted Living Facilities Data

While Wellmore of Lexington probably won’t let you examine their files, you can review publicly available records. You’ll find most of the data below using the Medicare Care and Compare tool and ProPublica Nursing Home Inspect Project data.

Wellmore of Lexington

Located at 200 Wellmore Dr. in Lexington, South Carolina, 29072: 41 residents, 60 certified beds

CMS Summary

Overall CMS rating: Four Stars (above average)
Health Inspections: Four Stars (above average)
Staffing: Four Stars (above average)
Quality of Resident Care: Two Stars (below average)
COVID Vaccination Rates: Residents, 87.5 percent (higher than state and national average); Staff, 60.9 percent (below state and national average)
Fire Safety & Emergency Preparedness: 0 citations
Penalties: Eight penalties during 2020 and 2021: Total $8,813 (no survey reports available)
ProPublica Data Summary: 59 COVID Infections (among residents and staff), 1 death: 12 survey deficiencies, 1 infection-related deficiency

Retreat at Wellmore of Daniel Island

Located at 580 Robert Daniel Drive in Charleston, SC 29492: 39 residents, 60 certified beds

CMS Summary

Overall CMS rating: Three Stars (average)
Health Inspections: Two Stars (below average)
Staffing: Four Stars (above average)
Quality of Resident Care: Two Stars (below average)
COVID Vaccination Rates: Residents, 96.1 percent (higher than state and national average); Staff, 62.8 percent (below state and national average)
Fire Safety & Emergency Preparedness: 0 citations
Penalties: Two penalties during 2020: Total $1,626 (no reports available)
ProPublica Data Summary: 50 COVID Infections, 3 deaths (among residents and staff) 18 survey deficiencies, 2 infection-related deficiencies

The Lodge at Wellmore-Tega Cay

Located at111 Wellmore Drive, Fort Mill, SC 29708: 38 residents, 60 certified beds

CMS Summary

Overall CMS rating: Five Stars (much above average)
Health Inspections: Four Stars (above average)
Staffing: Five Stars (much above average)
Quality of Resident Care: Three Stars (average)
COVID Vaccination Rates: Residents, 93.3 percent (higher than state and national average); Staff, 71.2 percent (below state and national average)
Fire Safety & Emergency Preparedness: 1 citation
Penalties: 0 penalties during
ProPublica Summary Data: 48 COVID Infections, 7 deaths (among residents and staff), 9 survey deficiencies, 1 infection-related deficiency

What Does the Data Mean?

CMS and ProPublica use Medicare information and CMS reports to analyze and evaluate assisted living facilities. The information considered in their analysis includes details from reports dating as far back as 2018. As their facility ratings show, all Wellmore assisted living facilities had issues related to patient care. While they rate high for safety, staffing, and health inspections, they received average and below-average Quality of Resident Care ratings. And even the best facilities can drop the ball when it comes to your loved one’s care.

All three Wellmore facilities have CMS “Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Corrections” reports in their online records. For some deficiencies, you see a notation of fines but you won’t find reports online. You might also have difficulty locating the available reports independently. You can reach some of the reports via links on ProPublica’s recap pages.

Here are just a few of the documented deficiencies.

Wellmore of Lexington

No written abuse policy: Noted after a resident reported that a certified nursing assistant abused her, causing abrasions; CNA said the resident fell
Failed to “Honor the resident’s right to a dignified existence”: Allowed a resident to repeatedly wear worn dingy street clothing
Failure to knock before entering
Failed to post Ombudsman and state agency contact information
Didn’t ensure that residents received accurate MDS assessments
Failed to update care plans with resident’s medical conditions
Failure to ensure that Legionella Risk Management policy was in place

The Lodge at Wellmore-Tega Cay

Failure to honor resident’s rights: Staff fails to knock on residents’ doors before entering
Care plan noncompliance: Inappropriate administration of pain meds, inappropriate administration of antipsychotic medication for screaming, yelling, wandering, and combative behavior
Unsanitary food preparation, distribution, and serving

Failure to honor the resident’s right to request, refuse, and/or discontinue treatment: Concerns about experimental research and advance directives
Failure to submit timely reports of suspected abuse, neglect: CNA rough while assisting a patient getting in and out of bed: Resident complained of rib cage pain
Failure to provide appropriate care for incontinent residents: Difficulties with a resident’s catheter

Reports primarily demonstrate privacy, medication, and dignity issues. While many of the deficiencies didn’t necessarily cause physical harm, any harm is unacceptable. When dealing with an assisted living facility, you and your loved one must recognize the potential for minor and major risks and determine what you can and cannot accept.

If Your Loved One Is a Wellmore Resident

Wellmore at Lexington, LLC operates three beautiful facilities. They provide services and amenities that help seniors live comfortably as they age. It’s a solid operation, but as with any other assisted living facility in the area, they must correct situations that injure or harm their aging residents.

If your loved one lives at one of Wellmore’s three locations or any other assisted living facility, pay attention to issues they might not notice. You should maintain regular contact, ask questions, and listen to any complaints.

If you believe your loved one sustained an injury due to neglect, abuse, or negligent care, contact a Wellmore assisted living attorney at Hughey Law Firm at (843) 881-8644 to enforce your legal rights.