Nursing home focus of Newsweek investigation to close under fed pressure

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Matt Clark

By Matt Clark

Investigative Database Reporter

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A nursing home company whose facility was the subject of a Newsweek investigation has agreed to shut it down, as well as another Kentucky nursing home, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky announced weeks after the firm filed lawsuits in an effort to keep them open.

Lexington-based Exceptional Living Centers and the two Louisville-based nursing homes will also pay a total of $1 million in fines to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Attorney Michael A. Bennett announced in a release. The fines were sought after inspectors found numerous issues at both facilities.

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The $636,752 fine against Hillcreek Rehabilitation and Care—the subject of the Newsweek story—is one of the largest against a single nursing home in the three years for which data is available. CMS fined the other home, St. Matthews Care and Rehabilitation Center, $389,656.25, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

"This office will vigorously defend the actions of CMS when it seeks to hold accountable nursing facilities that fail to comply with Medicare rules and regulations," Bennett said. "Nursing homes must meet all federal program requirements and provide their residents, which include some of our most vulnerable citizens, with the quality care and services they deserve."

Exceptional Living Centers confirmed it was winding down operations at the two facilities under a CMS-approved plan, but did not have further comment for this article.

Newsweek reported in March that Hillcreek faced nearly a dozen wrongful death and negligence lawsuits amid a nationwide backlog of nursing home inspections.

Hillcreek Rehabilitation and Care

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By the time inspections of Hillcreek began in September 2022, they were more than two years overdue. Among other things, inspectors alleged blood glucose monitors were not being disinfected between use on multiple patients. They alleged a patient was left in an unheated room on the floor with skin tears and covered in urine and feces before dying of hypothermia. They also alleged rats and their droppings were in plain view, a resident was bitten by a rodent and personnel were hired despite having disqualifying criminal records.

At St. Matthews, inspectors also reported glucometers being used without disinfection between patients, patients not being protected from abuse, employees with disqualifying criminal records, failures to immediately report patient safety and security violations, and a failure to to develop and implement care plans for patients requiring oxygen.

As Newsweek reported in June, federal officials, in a rare move, sought to cut funding to both nursing homes. Only 100 to 200 nursing homes out of 15,000 nationwide face such action each year.

The funding cut would have eliminated nearly all of Hillcreek's revenue and effectively shut it down, the nursing home said in a lawsuit it filed in late May to stop the action and the fine. Both nursing homes had more than 100 beds, including 172 at Hillcreek and 125 at St. Matthews, according to CMS records.

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order before the funding cut would have taken effect to give the nursing homes time to appeal. But in a June 1 court hearing after the U.S. Attorney's Office filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits and the restraining orders, Hillcreek and St. Matthews agreed to shut down.

Both nursing homes will be required to transfer Medicare and Medicaid residents to other facilities through a plan approved by CMS.

Before recent inspections, Hillcreek had last received an inspection in 2019, a lapse that is not unusual nationwide, Newsweek reported in its March investigation.

About 4,500 of the nation's more than 15,000 nursing homes were reported overdue for an inspection as of mid-February, federal health data shows. Of those, more than 1,500 facilities' last documented inspection occurred before COVID-19 was declared a national emergency, according to CMS, which contracts with state health departments to oversee the industry. Federal law requires nursing homes to be inspected at least every 15 months.

Health experts said the backlog posed a significant threat to the 1.1 million Americans living in nursing homes, many of whom require around-the-clock medical care and assistance. Inspection results also are the cornerstone of the federal Five-Star Quality Rating System, public rankings that help consumers compare and choose facilities.

Many health departments said they couldn't retain or recruit enough surveyors to catch up, blaming a mixture of retirements, employee burnout, lingering fears of COVID-19 and uncompetitive wages caused by stagnant federal funding.

Kentucky reported less than one in five of its surveyor positions had been filled as of October 2022. Desperate officials have been striking contracts with private companies that build their own ranks of surveyors, in part, by poaching state employees, further depleting government workforces.

Matt Clark can be reached at m.clark@newsweek.com or find him on Twitter at @MattTheJourno.

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