ST. LOUIS — In the weeks following the abrupt closure of ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ largest nursing home in mid-December, elected officials called for investigations and fines for the facility and its owners.
This week, regulators released documents detailing a $56,310 federal fine imposed on Northview Village and its owners for the chaotic, overnight shutdown during which a state inspector observed that an elevator stalled with nine people trapped inside, the building’s phone lines went down and two residents went missing.
Nursing home resident advocates said Wednesday that while the fine is higher than the average nursing home penalty, it doesn’t match the severity of Northview’s problems.
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“Given what happened here, I think it’s a fine that’s well below what the egregious behavior of this operator merits,†said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group.
Members of the nursing home’s ownership group did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Wednesday.
Northview shut down on Dec. 15 after a dispute between its owners over how to cover payroll. Residents were moved over the course of the night to more than a dozen different facilities, some in other counties. In some cases, family members weren’t notified, and nursing home advocates spent days tracking down where each person had been transferred.
Two residents walked away from the facility. One was found the following afternoon, and the other was found three weeks later.
“For everything that happened, it seems low,†said Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, the regional nursing home ombudsman program.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services fined Northview for three days being “in violation,†at a rate of $18,770 per day, according to the letter notifying owners Makhlouf and Lorraine Suissa and Eric Rothner. The three-day period begins Dec. 15 and goes through Dec. 17, when Northview gave up its Medicare and Medicaid contracts.
The letter from CMS says that if Northview waives its rights to a hearing, the penalty will be reduced by 35%. Mollot said that is the norm for CMS penalties.
“There are, unfortunately, many opportunities available to operators to get a fine reduced or eliminated altogether,†Mollot said. “There is no opportunity for the public, for families, for residents, to say, ‘This fine should be more.’â€
A portion of the penalties collected by CMS are funneled back to the states where the fines were imposed, and put toward efforts to boost nursing home quality — such as family councils and training for staff and inspectors — or to support or relocate residents of facilities that are shut down.
Missouri has had three projects funded through such penalties in recent years, all through the University of Missouri, according to CMS documents. Those projects provided consultation to nursing home staff, aimed to reduce incidence of bedsores in those facilities, reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs and increase the rate of residents who can move around independently.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-ºüÀêÊÓƵ, in January called for probes into Northview’s owners and into the state’s systems for overseeing nursing homes. She made those demands at a news conference and in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
As of Wednesday, Bush’s office had not received any response from HHS and was not aware of any other actions taken on Northview.