Preferred Care at Old Bridge: Call Bell Failures - NJ
The facility's own policy, last revised in January 2025, is explicit: nursing assistants must confirm the call bell is within the resident's reach before leaving the room, regardless of whether the resident can use it. The care plan for the resident at the center of the complaint had carried the same instruction since November 2020, more than four years before inspectors arrived.
When a surveyor interviewed CNA #2 on October 23, she described how the system is supposed to work. A light activates above the room, a sound carries into the hallway, and the resident's room and bed number appear on a monitor at the nurses' station. If she walks in and it's her resident, she turns off the bell and finds out what they need. If it isn't her resident, she goes to get the right aide.
LPN/UM #2 laid out the same expectation minutes later. Everybody can answer a call bell, she said. Sometimes staff can handle the need themselves; sometimes they have to find someone else, like a nurse for pain medication. Either way, the resident gets told someone is coming. Call bells, she said, needed to be in reach at all times, positioned so a resident could press it with their dominant hand or whatever side worked best.
The facility's written policy matched everything both staff members described. Check the bells regularly. Leave them in a standard place when making beds. Confirm reach before walking out.
The resident who couldn't reach theirs needed staff assistance for daily activities and had a care plan that specifically called for keeping the call bell close. Whether they needed help and had no way to ask for it, the inspection record doesn't say.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Preferred Care At Old Bridge, LLC from 2025-10-23 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 5, 2026 · Our methodology
PREFERRED CARE AT OLD BRIDGE, LLC in OLD BRIDGE, NJ was cited for violations during a health inspection on October 23, 2025.
When a surveyor interviewed CNA #2 on October 23, she described how the system is supposed to work.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.