Alice Harris Discusses Nursing Home Visitation During the Pandemic

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Nexsen Pruet health care attorney Alice Harris was recently featured in the N.C. Lawyers Weekly article, "Nursing home visits resume, but leave many questions to answer."

The piece details the uncertainly and mixed messages surrounding North Carolina slowly beginning to allow people to visit nursing home residents. Alice discusses the challenge of balancing patients mental and physical health. 

Excerpt

But with employees coming in and out of the facilities, there is the concern that one misstep can mean a COVID-19 outbreak. The biggest challenge that nursing and assisted living homes are facing, then, is how to balance their residents’ wellbeing and mental health against measures to protect them from exposure to COVID-19, said Alice Harris, an attorney with Nexsen Pruet.

“Our nursing home and assisted living clients understand the importance of visitation for their residents’ wellbeing and mental health, as well as the impact on their family members,” Harris said. “All have been working hard to understand state and federal guidance on how to safely conduct visitation – and through various means: In person, window visits, outdoor visitation, video conferencing and telephone visits.”

Matters are further complicated by the fact that rules and recommendations are different for homes that don’t accept Medicare or Medicaid, and thus are subject only to state supervision, than for those that do accept them and thus have to abide by both state and federal mandates.

Read the full article here. 

Nexsen Pruet, LLC is one of the largest law firms in the Carolinas, with more than 200 professionals across 8 offices providing regional capabilities with international strengths.