I need some guidance and some help! 2 days ago at my LTC facility I had a severely demented pt state to her family member that someone "hit her". The family is deeply involved in the care of pt and are at the bedside nearly 75% of the time. They are all very loving, friendly and appreciative of the care that their family member receives from our facility so when the family member stated that the pt had mentioned this, the family member whole heartedly believes that it did not occur. The family member is also DPOA and upon discussion of this I informed the family member that we could do two things. 1. Involve the DHS, do a full investigation and rule out any type of abuse and 2. run some tests to check for infections r/t increased confusion. Both myself and family interviewed the pt and she was unable to produce any reliable information about being "hit"... again the pt is severely demented. 30 minutes later when we asked her again she said she was never hit. Family stated they did not want to make a big fuss over the situation as again they did not believe that any abuse really occurred. I got the order for the ua, cbc, cmp and cxr which ended up + for infiltrate. I immediately contacted my Assistant DON for clarification about documentation and ADON said not to document anything regarding the patient being "hit". I did not report the occurrence to DHS per family request, but at the same time didn't document anything per ADON. After the long weekend and working today I got a call from my DON stating that they were going to do a further investigation and not to come into work tomorrow. NOW I'M FREAKING OUT because I didn't report to DHS!! My boyfriend thinks I should speak to a lawyer and I feel my job may be in jeopardy because if it comes down to it, I know the facility license and not MY license is of top concern to my employer. Any words of wisdom and advice would be MUCH appreciated!! DON says she will call me tomorrow to let me know if I can come back to work.