ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 TAG: 9611270065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
The Clifton Forge nursing home that last week lost its Medicaid eligibility said Tuesday it is appealing the decision, but for now 25 of its residents must continue to search for other care facilities.
Shenandoah Manor Nursing Home is in the process of disputing the results of last week's state health department inspection, said Angela Baldwin, the nursing home's administrator. The home, which had been on probation after earlier health department visits uncovered a variety of patient care violations, failed the most recent inspection and subsequently lost Medicaid funding.
Kevin McCullough, a spokesman for the LOA Area Agency on Aging, said the search for new homes for Shenandoah Manor's residents is progressing "a little bit better than expected." Ten of the 35 residents initially affected by the funding loss already have been moved by their families to other facilities, he said.
Many of the 90 people who attended a public meeting Monday night were very vocal in their support of the nursing home, Baldwin said.
"We had a lot of family and community support," she said. "Everybody's real hopeful."
The LOA announced last week that a list of nursing homes with open beds would be available at the Monday night meeting, but McCullough said the Department of Medical Assistance Services, which administers the Medicaid program, is waiting another week to compile the list because bed availability changes from day to day.
If the nursing home's appeal is not heard, the remaining residents must move by Dec.22.
The uncertainty has prompted the families of some residents to begin searching for new accommodations on their own. Any residents moved by Medicaid will be relocated according to the type of care they need, McCullough said, with critical-care patients given priority for the openings closest to Clifton Forge.
Residents whose families cannot find alternative homes will be moved to other nursing homes in the state and possibly to several facilities in nearby West Virginia, McCullough said. LOA initially had thought all residents would have to be transferred to other Virginia homes in places as far away as Roanoke, Lexington and the New River Valley.
Shenandoah Manor is the second Virginia nursing home to lose Medicaid funding in recent months. The other was in Richmond.
Colonial Care management company of Roanoke, which was hired by the state to get the Richmond home back in compliance, has been hired to do the same by Shenandoah Manor's owners. But Deborah Petrine of Colonial Care said her company simply had too much to accomplish in too short a time.
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