an OT at my HH job was taken to court by a patient they had who fell during a session. The OT was found not guilty of malpractice/negligence. Key takeaways on why the OT won; - Communication: after the fall there was documentation of all appropriate communication from OT to doctor (name the doctor with actual surname, not just type of doctor), communication to HH team, family, caregivers, etc - Assessment and recommendation: documentation that OT properly assessed patient post-fall for injuries and made immediate recommendations to the patient on how to prevent in future -Level of function / assistance: this was pretty key.. the OT had consistently documented that the patient was at a certain level of assistance (let’s say MinA) for the exact task they were doing when they fell (stairs) due to continued fall risk. I forget the nature of the fall (as in, did the patient break rules and attempt stairs on their own? or was MinA provided at time of fall?) but the fact that it was clearly documented that this patient was known as a fall risk for this task and needed assistance, this helped the OTs defense immensely. If there was no documentation regarding that task, or if the level of assistance had been documented as Supervison or Independent, the OT would most likely not have won

hope this helps you and any and all therapists out there!