Therefore they are subject to the same rules which apply to those types of cases. In Texas, this means that they are subject to Article 4590i a statute designed to protect doctors and hospitals from lawsuits. Ostensibly this act is intended to screen out frivolous claims by forcing the potential claimant find a doctor willing to write a report and testify that the first doctor deviated from the appropriate standard of care. What the act really does is drive up the price of litigation for the claimant and their lawyer. That was the real intent of the statute and the real result of it.
Every state has similar rules now because doctors, hospitals and nursing homes have strong lobbies.
These statutes were put in place under the vast Tort Reform measures which swept the country in the 1990s. A nursing home is not a pleasant place to be even under the best of conditions. The people who are living there generally have serious and potentially fatal medical conditions. Many are severely disabled. Many are dying.