THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270265
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 91 lines
Early reports from a state health department inspection at Manning Convalescent Home show that the Portsmouth nursing home has ``improved substantially'' and is correcting problems found during three previous inspections this year, health department officials said Monday.
That improvement may mean that Manning won't lose its Medicaid/Medicare contracts, which could have resulted in the transfer of most of its 176 residents. The loss of the contracts would have been a financial blow to the home, which has operated for 60 years.
The inspection, the home's fourth in six months, was completed Friday. A final report is expected later this week, but ``the initial feedback is it looks good,'' said Nancy Hofheimer, director of the Office of Health Facilities Regulation, which oversees Virginia's nursing homes.
Manning officials were unavailable for comment late Monday.
The nursing home failed to meet state and federal standards during inspections in April, May and July because of repeated violations that could affect residents' health and safety.
Those violations included a delay of surgery for a resident because the home didn't obtain the necessary consent. The delay placed the resident ``in a life-threatening position,'' inspectors wrote in their report.
Other problems included failing to supervise a resident, who crawled outside in the snow early one morning and had to be hospitalized for hypothermia, and inadequate care for several patients on ventilators.
Manning's performance on those earlier inspections led the federal Health Care Financing Administration to threaten to cancel the home's Medicaid/Medicare contracts Sept. 1.
If, as Hofheimer expects, this week's report shows no serious violations, then Manning will avoid the fate of a Richmond nursing home, which faced a similar situation this month.
State Medicaid director Joseph M. Teefey said Monday that his department would place a temporary manager in Richmond's Forest Hill Convalescent Center to avoid transferring the home's residents.
Forest Hill has failed six state inspections in the past eight months, Teefey said. It lost its federal Medicaid/Medicare certification on June 15.
The temporary-manager solution was reached after a marathon negotiating session this weekend, Teefey said, and an agreement was signed at 2 a.m. Monday.
The agreement means that the state won't have to move Forest Hill's 143 Medicaid residents, many of whom have been there for years.
``I like what I hear,'' said resident Hunter Dyson, 60. ``Look at it this way: If it's your house, would you want to move out?''
Dyson has lived at Forest Hill for five years. ``I have nowhere else to go,'' he said.
Forest Hill owner Herbert L. Seal agreed to pay the federal portion of Medicaid and the temporary manager's salary for 60 days. Teefey estimates it will cost Seal about $300,000.
``I think it was the only option I had to keep the patients here and soothe the anxieties of the families and staff,'' Seal said Monday.
After 60 days, health department officials will re-inspect Forest Hill. If the nursing home meets state and federal regulations, it will revert back to Seal's management. Otherwise, Teefey said, the temporary manager will remain in place until residents are moved.
Teefey later spoke to state legislators at the General Assembly's Joint Commission on Health Care about the inspection process for nursing homes.
Stronger federal enforcement rules that became effective July 1, 1995, mean the state may see more situations like Forest Hill and Manning, Teefey said. Thirty-two facilities across Virginia are ``in some type of trouble,'' he said. How to handle them is ``something we've got to consider in the future.''
But officials have already learned several lessons from Forest Hill, he said, including the need for swiftness in addressing problems with patient care.
For instance, Teefey said, his department should have installed a temporary manager in the troubled facility several weeks earlier, instead of allowing the situation to go on as long as it did.
He also said it was more difficult than expected to find places for residents if they had to be moved. Earlier this summer, when his department was trying to find homes for about 150 Forest Hill residents, only 19 nursing home beds were available in Richmond.
Although several Richmond hospitals offered to keep the Forest Hill residents, such an option would be extremely expensive, Teefey said. And yet transferring those residents to nursing homes as far away as the Shenandoah Valley or the Eastern Shore - sites the state considered - would have been devastating for the frail, elderly residents.
The situation is similar in Hampton Roads, where fewer than 250 nursing home slots are available at any given time.
``We have to sit down and come up with the mechanism to keep people in localities'' if a nursing home has to transfer residents, Teefey said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Manning Convalescent Home may keep its certification - and its 176
patients.
KEYWORDS: NURSING HOMES INSPECTION CERTIFICATION by CNB