Nowhere was the early ferocity of the coronavirus more evident in New Jersey than in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Of the 8,600 residents who succumbed to the virus in the last two years, 78% of them died in March and April of 2020, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Monday.
During a 2-1/2-hour hearing before the Assembly Budget Committee, the state’s top health official recapped — and at times defended — the department’s pandemic response, with a particular focus on how it managed the 660 long-term care facilities it licenses.
“We got hit hard and fast by a novel virus, never before seen in humans, and we were building the plane as we were flying it, as the governor has said,” Persichilli said. “Decisions were made based on prior viruses that were far more predictable.”
Through her testimony and a budget analysis composed by the Office of Legislative Services, the health department revealed:
* The department conducted 5,211 inspections from March 2020 to March 2022, with more than 1,600 of these triggered by complaints; the remainder involving routine surveys and inspections focused on infection control practices. The state has spent $2.27 million to hire private inspectors to keep up with the workload.
* Long-term care facilities were hit with $12.1 million in fines, with the majority levied by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and $250,000 by the state health department. The facilities were not identified by name and a health department spokeswoman said the list would not be available Monday.
Federal regulators in 2020 fined Andover Subacute Rehabilitation Center $220,000 after authorities discovered 17 bodies stacked in a makeshift morgue. The facility is now known as Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center, and a team from Atlantic Health System has been sent in by the state to supervise the troubled facility.
* Of the 660 long-term care facilities in the state, all but 34 facilities have provided the health department with an outbreak response plan.
“The Department of Health provided attestation records to the Department of Human Services who issued notices to recoup a percentage of the facility’s COVID-related 10% Medicaid rate increase for facilities that failed to comply with this law,” according to the budget analysis, which did not include the names of the violators.
* The department has created the Office of Long-Term Care Resiliency, which is working to develop criteria that will trigger a four-person “Mission Critical” team of in-house experts “to assess, evaluate, educate, and recalibrate before a crisis ensues,” according to the budget analysis. Murphy’s $2.4 billion budget for the health department includes $500,000 to fund these teams.
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Assemblyman Herb Conaway, D-Burlington, asked the commissioner what has been done to date when a nursing home continues to have low ratings and poor inspection surveys.
“What should the consequences be if some (facility) is consistently a 1-star?” Conaway asked, a reference to the state Comptroller’s report earlier this year that identified 15 nursing homes that have scored poorly under the CMS nursing home compare website.
Persichilli said with tens of thousands of people calling long-term care facilities their home, the solutions are challenging.
“Cutting off funding makes it worse. If there is a closure scenario, where do those individuals go once uprooted from their homes? Mission critical team should get in there before that occurs,” she said.
“Once we are in reactive mode, it’s difficult to change the trajectory, as we are trying to do with Woodlands,” she added. “We have a monitor, Atlantic Health, who is in there every single day trying to right the ship. It’s a difficult journey.”
A spokesperson for the Woodland facility did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
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Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
The Link LonkApril 26, 2022 at 05:29AM
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2022/04/nj-nursing-homes-whose-residents-were-hit-hard-by-covid-fined-12m-during-pandemic.html
N.J. nursing homes whose residents were hit hard by COVID fined $12M during pandemic - NJ.com
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