Forest Hills Center: Consent Violation for Veteran - OH
A November 2025 complaint inspection at Forest Hills Center, located at 2841 East Dublin-Granville Road, found that staff obtained or attempted to obtain treatment orders for Resident 161 on August 6, August 9, and August 18, 2025, without a signed consent form authorizing the facility's Medical Director or any related providers to care for him.
The resident's daughter had refused to sign that consent from the moment her father was admitted. Her reason was specific and consistent: she wanted only VA physicians involved in his care.
The facility knew this. According to the administrator and Director of Nursing, who were interviewed together on October 16, the facility had been "going back and forth" with the daughter asking her to sign. She continued to refuse. The administrator and DON acknowledged all three dates when staff moved forward with treatment orders regardless.
What happened on those three dates is not fully detailed in the inspection report. What is documented is that on at least one occasion, the facility's on-call physician group was contacted and notified, and a treatment order was put in place. The consent form that would have authorized exactly that had not been signed. The family's position had not changed.
The violation was cited at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting a few residents. That classification sits at the lower end of the federal harm scale. It does not mean the daughter's objections were minor. She had made a clear, repeated decision about who should provide medical care to her father, and the facility proceeded without her authorization.
The inspection was conducted by the Ohio Department of Health on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It was a complaint inspection, meaning someone had flagged a concern before surveyors arrived.
Forest Hills Center is a 160-bed skilled nursing facility on the northeast side of Columbus. The inspection report covers 16 pages; this deficiency appears on page two.
The administrator's framing during the October interview was that the situation was a negotiation, a back-and-forth. The daughter's framing, as reflected in what she actually did, was a refusal. Those are not the same thing. A family member declining to authorize a physician is not a stalled conversation. It is an answer.
For veterans and their families, the question of who provides medical care carries particular weight. The VA system exists in part because many veterans and their families prefer care from providers with specific experience treating service-related conditions. Whether Resident 161's medical history involved service-connected conditions is not stated in the inspection report. What is stated is that his daughter wanted VA physicians, said so repeatedly, and was not listened to.
The facility's plan of correction is not included in the publicly available inspection document. Families seeking that information are directed to contact Forest Hills Center or the Ohio state survey agency directly.
The daughter had one request. She made it more than once. On at least three dates across two weeks in August, the facility moved forward without her signature on file.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Forest Hills Center from 2025-11-03 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
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
FOREST HILLS CENTER in COLUMBUS, OH was cited for violations during a health inspection on November 3, 2025.
The resident's daughter had refused to sign that consent from the moment her father was admitted.
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.