Staffing levels and the quality of care at five Orange County nursing facilities will be routinely examined by an independent monitor as part of a settlement announced Friday by the state Attorney General's Office.
The facilities include Alta Care Center in Garden Grove, Anaheim Terrace Care Center in Anaheim, Carehouse Healthcare Center in Santa Ana, Fountain Care Center in Orange and St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton.
Each facility is operated by Skilled Healthcare Group, Inc., and had been part of an elder abuse investigation by the state Department of Justice. Statewide, the company operates 20 facilities with 2,360 beds.
The Attorney General had accused Skilled Healthcare of providing inadequate patient care. Between 2008 and 2012, the office noted in Friday's announcement, public health officials found 209 deficiencies at Skilled Healthcare's facilities and issued 76 citations.
Prosecutors said the nursing chain had failed to meet minimum staffing levels and prevent even basic medical complications. State inspectors had found cases of malnutrition, dehydration and over-medication.
As part of the settlement announced Friday, the company agreed to pay for additional supervision of its facilities for the next two years. An independent monitor will conduct surprise visits and send regular reports to the Attorney General.
Skilled Healthcare agreed to pay for the monitoring, estimated by the Attorney General's Office to cost $350,000 a year, but did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
In a statement, Attorney General Kamala Harris described the case as part of an increased focus on elder abuse. She created special units to examine Medi-Cal fraud and neglect at California's nursing homes.
"This is a case about neglect and abuse of California's elders by a facility that was supposed to protect and care for them," Harris said. "Family and friends should have peace of mind that their loved ones are being well cared for when they are in a nursing home setting."
Skilled Healthcare's legal troubles stretch back to 2006. That year, patients and relatives filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that the nursing chain had violated California's minimum staffing rules and provided poor care.
A jury awarded the plaintiffs $670 million in damages in 2010, but the company later reduced the amount to $50 million through a settlement. Part of that settlement required almost the same kind of monitoring as the new settlement with the Attorney General's Office.
Roland Rapp, Skilled Healthcare's general counsel, said the company completed the previous monitoring with no issues and was happy to resume them to resolve a "gun to our head" from the state Attorney General's Office.
"Our record of compliance of those (reports) ... were essentially perfect," he said. "The auditor gave us a glowing report at the end of 18 months, such that the judge in that case ended the injunction early."
Rapp said the company has improved record keeping so it is easier to monitor and document that minimum standards are being met. Before the lawsuit, he acknowledged, records hadn't been up to par.
But Rapp took issue with Harris' statements Friday. The announcement cited the number of violations between 2008 and 2012, suggesting the company had a history of elder abuse.
However, the settlement itself didn't resolve widespread allegations against the company. The Attorney General's Office had charged it with one misdemeanor count of elder abuse.
"There's really nothing in there about any of the things she's talking about," Rapp said. "It's about the one facility in 2008. She's expanding it to 2012."
Skilled Healthcare has since transferred the facility, Eureka Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in northern California, to another provider, Rapp said.
Keegan Kyle is an investigative reporter at The Orange County Register. He covers public safety and local government issues. What should he write about next?
You can contact him by sending an email to?kkyle@ocregister.com?or by calling (714) 796-4976. You can also follow him on Twitter (@keegankyle).
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Source: http://www.ocregister.com/news/healthcare-496144-general-attorney.html
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