HARRISBURG — State health department officials moved on several fronts to improve nursing home care oversight during the past year, including making it easier for citizens to file complaints about poor or substandard care.
The department prefers to work with nursing homes to improve care rather than having to close them if they don’t make improvements, Health Secretary Karen Murphy, Ph.D., told lawmakers last week. A typical nursing home can have from 200 to 300 residents and many of them think of it as their community, she said.
“To move them is a real hardship,” Murphy said.
The department ramped up its oversight efforts following a lawsuit filed last July by the state attorney general’s office against a chain of nursing homes owned by Golden Living National Senior Care LLC in Pennsylvania.
The lawsuit before Commonwealth Court alleges inadequate care of residents at 25 nursing homes operated by Golden Senior Living, including ones in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Tunkhannock. The homes were understaffed, leaving residents hungry, dirty and sometimes unable to summon help to meet basic needs, the lawsuit said.
Golden Senior Living officials said the allegations are baseless and without merit.
Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane first targeted 14 Golden Living homes in the lawsuit and then amended it last September to list 11 more.
The lawsuit seeks fines for violations of laws and restitution for consumers.
The legal action spurred Murphy to create a task force to recommend changes in state regulations, laws and policy governing nursing homes. A report is expected this summer.
At the department’s request, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale is conducting an audit of nursing home oversight to identify potential improvements.
An initial department review showed that nearly 40 percent of the nursing homes in Pennsylvania received just a one- or two-star rating in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services five-star rating system, and there was a decrease in nursing home complaints.
The department reinstated a policy of accepting anonymous complaints and made the complaint form more visible on its website, resulting in a one-third increase in the number of overall complaints, spokeswoman Amy Worden said.
Other actions include revising the complaint intake process and mandatory retraining for nursing home facility surveyors. The department annually inspects 710 nursing homes without prior notice and more frequently if complaints are filed.
While there was an increase in the number of nursing home complaints, there also was a corresponding decrease in the number of complaints substantiated by the department during the past year, said Russell McDaid, CEO of Pennsylvania Health Care Association and Center for Assisted Living Management representing more than 423 long-term care and senior service providers.
Consumers have a right to file a complaint and then it is the department’s job to investigate it, he said.
“The (department) has always been very aggressive in enforcing regulations,” he said.