NURSING HOMES PART II – Corporate Ownership

Corporate ownership changes linked to poor nursing home quality

Justin Schwartz, MPH

Director of Healthcare – Education (K-12) IT Solutions / Special Projects

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/corporate-ownership-changes-linked-poor-nursing-home-schwartz-mph

Ms. Emily Monogan, a staff writer, for Mcknights  (a Long-Term Care News pre-eminent magazine for long term care giving professionals) reports that; nursing homes that are bought and sold by corporate chains tend to provide a lower quality of care, according to research from Harvard Medical School released on Monday.

 Many nursing homes that experienced a chain-related transaction between 1993 and 2010 had a higher number of deficiency citations than facilities that did not undergo a transaction, according to researchers from Harvard, the University of Michigan, the University of Rochester and Vanderbilt University.

 In many instances, nursing homes that were the subject of a transaction were already having quality issues, which continued after the transaction. Those pre-existing quality issues led the researchers to believe that the transaction wasn’t to blame for any drops in quality, but rather that corporate transactions can be an indicator of a low-quality facility.

 The study’s results could spur policymakers to create legislation that requires more comprehensive reporting of ownership for nursing homes chains, as well as increased accountability, oversight and transparency for corporate chains, the researchers said. The researchers also suggest that notices of nursing home sales should be publicly available, an idea that was recently set as a rule in Massachusetts.

 The researchers noted that consumers may be able to use the number of a facility’s chain-related transactions as a potential indicator of a facility’s quality.

“A large number of mergers, sales and acquisitions have occurred over the past two decades among nursing home chains, and we wanted to see how residents living in these nursing homes were affected by these transactions,” explained lead researcher David Grabowski, Ph.D., a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard.

Each year, between 1,200 and 2,000 nursing homes in the United States — 7% to 13% of all facilities — are involved in a corporate chain transaction. Despite that, the amount of nursing homes owned by a corporate chain remains the same as it was in the 1990s, the study’s authors note.

 The most common type of transaction is mergers across chains, with eight of the 10 largest nursing homes chains — which comprise 12% of all facilities — undergoing some sort of ownership change within the study period.

Results of the study appear in the May issue of Health Affairs.

 

Nursing Home Evictions is the excuse to Drop Difficult Patients its nothing but to Human Dumping

NURSING HOME EVICTIONS

By Justin Schwartz, MPH – LinkedIn

Justin Schwartz, MPH

Director of Healthcare – Education (K-12) IT Solutions / Special Projects

May 9, 2016

 Sadly, it’s a term you may come to hear more often: ‘nursing home evictions.’ While it is true that nursing homes and chronic care facilities have the right to evict a resident for just cause—and those causes are generally limited to six—a trend has been growing where residents have been evicted more for reasons of convenience.

Or worse—because the facility thinks it can earn more revenue for the bed from a more well-heeled source.

“When they get tired of caring for the resident, they kick the resident out,” said Richard Mollot of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a New York advocacy group. Complaints and lawsuits across the U.S. point to a spike in evictions even as observers note available records only give a glimpse of the problem.

An Associated Press analysis of federal data from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program finds complaints about discharges and evictions are up about 57 percent since 2000. It was the top-reported grievance in 2014, with 11,331 such issues logged by ombudsmen, who work to resolve problems faced by residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other adult-care settings.

The American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, defends the discharge process as lawful and necessary to remove residents who can’t be kept safe or who endanger the safety of others, and says processes are in place to ensure evictions aren’t done improperly. Dr. David Gifford, a senior vice president with the group, said a national policy discussion is necessary because there are a growing number of individuals with complex, difficult-to-manage cases who outpace the current model of what a nursing home offers.

“There are times these individuals can’t be managed or they require so much staff attention to manage them that the other residents are endangered,” he said.

The numbers of both nursing homes and residents in the U.S. have decreased in recent years; about 1.4 million people occupy about 15,600 homes now. The overall number of complaints across a spectrum of issues has fallen in the past decade, though complaints about evictions are down only slightly from their high-water mark in 2007, the federal figures show. Meanwhile, the share of complaints that evictions and discharges represent has steadily grown, holding the top spot since 2010.

Offending facilities routinely flout federal law, attempting to exploit and widen justifications for discharge. They say hospitalizations are a common time when facilities seek to purge residents, even though the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 guarantees Medicaid recipients’ beds must be held in their nursing homes during hospital stays of up to a week.

“They try and take the easy way out and refuse to let the person back in,” said Eric Carlson, an attorney who has contested evictions for the advocacy group Justice in Aging.

Federal law allows unrequested transfers of residents for a handful of reasons: the facility’s closure; failure to pay; risk posed to the health and safety of others; improvement in the resident’s condition to the point of no longer needing the home’s services; or because the facility can no longer meet the person’s needs.

Though that final category is often cited in evictions, advocates dispute how often it fits.

“The majority of the time, it’s because the resident is considered difficult,” said Tony Chicotel, an attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. Chicotel says involuntary discharges are almost entirely focused on Medicaid beneficiaries and that economics sometimes play a role in the ousters. Rather than a long-term Medicaid patient, many facilities would prefer to fill a bed with a private-pay resident or a short-term rehabilitation patient, whose care typically brings a far higher reimbursement rate under Medicare.

Nursing Homes – “Alluring” Business – Political Contributions

Bottom Left – Allure Marketing Group from Allure website, Bottom Right, Shalom Braunstein

The High Finance of the Nursing Home Business and the People Who Profit at the Expense of the Elderly-Part I.

 

Contributors – May 8, 2016

Following the articles we did on Joel Landau and Allure, we received a series of emails providing us with additional information including numerous LLC’s registered at similar addresses as those of several nursing homes. We received information on nursing homes with horrendous reviews but profitable business models. We received a multitude of documents and emails regarding the high stakes game of the nursing home business.

We will be publishing this in pieces. We will begin with a letter from one contributor and Allure, Joel Landau and his partners, think Rivington…

 

Dear LM,

I’ve been on a personal mission to counter the dismaying government sponsorship of harm to the disabled elderly in assisted living residences as well as nursing homes in NY. The revolving door of predatory property owners masquerading as long term care operators keeps me at it… Apropos of the much appreciated investigation by Comptroller Stringer of the mishandling of the Rivington Nursing Home property churn, I did some more investigation of the Allure Group . There are any number of malefactors…but sadly & as a Jew, I’ve seen the enabling of mostly Hasidic property owners masquerading as long term care operators by the either ignorant OR co-opted Dept of Health and the bought and paid for legislators who write impotent legislation-and who allow insufficient vetting and end up certifying the worst owners of these places. 

I want both the Department of Health and Governor Cuomo to be held to account. I want both the Aging and Health Committees in Albany to be accountable to the vulnerable aging-an enormously growing part of our population. These vulnerable elders are the DOH’s obligation to protect-and not their campaign contributors via the nursing home lobby group Leading Age/Hinman Straub who pay to play.

The churning of the homes of the frail and frightened must stop. It is another moral imperative as is the outrageous abuse of children. Jackals must be stopped…and certainly when they call themselves Jews-we must, as you are doing, call them out.

 

LM Note:

Some of the many names:

• Rubin

• Landau

• Sentosa

• Braunstein

• Sympaticare

• Fensterman

• Chetrit-Jewish Home Lifecare

• Landa

• Goldberger

The mysterious partners who bamboozled city into luxury condo deal
The obscure Brooklyn company at the center of a City Hall scandal already owed millions of dollars in unpaid tax and Joel Landau

http://forward.com/news/national/337575/hasidic-businessman-who-flipped-aids-home-part-of-sect-with-cozy-ties-to-ma/

The New York State Department of Health continued to allow this group to flourish. The City Agency (DCAS) has a cavalier attitude towards the most vulnerable. DCAS ended up sponsoring the diminution of a long term care facility even as the Mayor promoted his Zoning for Quality and Affordability initiative which purports to incentivize developers to build more residences for the aged and infirm.

New York Post: Lobbyist James Capalino arranged for a DCAS restriction to be waived, allowing a nursing home

Allure Group-Joel Landau. Solomon Rubin… Marvin Rubin owners:

NYC Nursing Homes:
Hamilton Park Nursing
Linden Center for Nursing
Hopkins Center for Nursing
King David Center for Nursing
Crown Hts Center for Nursing
Bedford Center for Nursing
Harlem Center for Nursing
(Grandell Rehab-Solomon Rubin –CFO)
(Beach Terrace Care Solomon Rubin –CFO)
St Joachim and Anne Nursing
Nostrand Center for Nursing and Rehab aka NNRC Properties LLC (formerly CABS Nursing)…bought by Allure for $15,600,000 & now being converted into condos in Bed-Stuy, Brklyn

NJ:
Norwood Terrace Health Center

Landau is owner of :
InteliMed
E-Z Bill Inc
Care to Care LLC
199 Lee Ave Suite 182
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Landau is also Chairman of AlphaCare of New York
http://ir.magellanhealth.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=784883
Landau is Managing Director Co-owner of Pinta Partners

Rubin(s) also owners of :
Community care EMS LLC:
http://www.nycremsco.org/images/formsandapplications/

REDACTED%20Index%20and%20exhibits%20A%20(3777)%20and%20B%20(3778s).pdf

The following includes reviews from families of loved ones impacted by sub-par oversight and failure by the DOH to report/enforce and prevent more acquisitions by Allure Group…Landau and the Rubins

1) Hamilton Park Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
(formerly Victory Memorial Hospital)

691 92nd St
Brooklyn, NY 11218
718 567 1000
Reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/hamilton-park-nursing-and-rehabilitation-center-brooklyn

12/2/2015-Jessica F.
“This place deserves to be shut down as the operation is still a disgrace. For affected families, I urge you to let your voice be heard so families don’t suffer the consequences of keeping a loved one here. This place will just bill insurance and drain your bank account for little to no services rendered.”

2/13/2015
“Please do not send your loved ones here! The staff is negligent and administration is by far subpar. They will not report status updates about the well-fare of their residents and nurses are extremely rude, (watch out for Miriam!). I have witnessed three deaths in the unit in the course of three weeks and have seen the staff run codes. I’m a physician with a loved one who needed care and they literally drag their feet during emergency situations. Respiratory therapy does not suction patients regularly either and aids will throw family out of the room when they need to move the patient. Tactless and disrespectful and no professionalism training among the staff. This place may be up and running today, but it should not be operating in a developed society. Deserves to be investigated. I would give it no stars. Sad place, really. “

7/24/2015-Nancella R.
“WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING:
DO NOT PLACE A LOVED ONE IN HAMILTON PARK NURSING & REHAB CENTER UNLESS YOU WANT THEM TO DIE!!! Hamilton Park has a beautiful facade, but don’t let that fool you, they are criminally negligent! This place is truly a place you leave someone to die.

My mother-in-law was in there for 3 weeks (as a rehab patient) and they did as little as possible. They didn’t respond to calls for help, knowingly left stained sheets with feces on the floor and I actually have pictures. I witnessed them ignore cries for help… The PT was a joke. The staff was nonexistent, the administration is incompetent! PT gave her 30 minute “phone-in” sessions which basically reversed all the progress she made in Acute Care over at Methodist. She was supposed to have daily MD visits, that didn’t happen. Hamilton Park actually didn’t give her vital medicines prescribed to her by her neurologist at Mt. Sinai and they charged our insurance company for services that were never rendered. If it hadn’t been for my father-in-law never leaving her side, I seriously think they would have left her to die.

To make matters worse…. Upon release Hamilton Park’s social worker, Lana, promised care as per her discharge orders from a doctor she met only a few times. One paper, the orders looked good, but in reality there was no fulfillment of their orders. Hamilton Park contracts home care through a sham company names Arch HealthCare and their subsidiary Empire Home Health Care Services. They didn’t provide any of the care she was promised. For 2 weeks, she was left to rot at home. They provided zero advocacy. Once it became obvious, we would receive no care, our family stepped in and took the bums off the case. Now (VNS) Visiting Nurse Services is managing her care at home. BTW, I highly recommended VNS!

WARNING: Stay clear away from Hamilton Park Nursing Home, Arch Home Health Care and Empire Home Healthcare Services!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are criminally negligent and my family is in the midst of filing a lawsuit! DO NOT SEND ANYONE THERE!!!

Whoever has the audacity to write a good review for this place must be sadistic and they must work there. Seriously, shame shame shame!!!!

If I could rate this facility with less than one star, I would. “

2) Linden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation (formerly Ruby Weston Manor)

2237 Linden Blvd
Brooklyn, New York 11207
Review:

http://local-nursing-homes.com/nursing-homes-reviews/new-york/kings-county

Dec 24, 2015 “One star is one star too many for this facility. My computer won’t allow zero stars to be processed. The staff needs to be completely retrained in the nursing and nurses aides programs. The neglect and unprofessionalism is disgusting. This place should be under strict scrutiny and be completely re-staffed with caring professionals that know how to do their job! In reference to L. Garcia.Thankfully he became so much more sick in there when he entered, he had to go to the hospital. He was saved. Imagine that!!!!!!!”

 

3) Hopkins Center for Nursing

155 Dean St
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/hopkins-center-for-rehabilitation-and-healthcare-brooklyn-2

3/26/2016 

-Lavitta C. “This place needs to be re-vamped. Everytime my relative would go out to hospital. No one knew which hospital, if she was back and good luck getting anyone the phone on the actual units. It smells terrible, like urine and feces. Patients are just there. no one returns phone calls! I would not recommend this place

3/10/2015 


 -Ellen J. 
Watch out for this place. Since the new owner assumed responsibility for this nursing home (previously run as Bishop Mugavero run by the Catholic church), they have been spending more money on redecorating than adequately trained staff. They constantly have too few staff during the evenings, weekends and holidays. Hallways smell of urine or feces. The disposable underwear of residents are not changes as often as they should. I am also very worried whether an appropriate evacuation could be handled in case of fire. They only have 3 slow moving elevators and door for gate in garden is locked.”

http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/health/4846-part-timer-harbors-troubling-memories-of-brooklyn-nursing-home

Hopkins property location on Dean St–per ACRIS- is owned by KFG Operating I LLC /Hopkins Ventures LLC (Marvin Rubin is 30% owner) located at 141-16 72nd Ave Flushing,

NY where the following LLCs are also located:
LOCATED at 141-16 72nd Ave…Flushing, NY

https://www.bizydex.com/new-york/flushing/141-16-72nd-avenue

CENTER MANAGEMENT GROUP LLC
WESTCHESTER ALP PROPERTY LLC
BELLHAVEN VENTURES LLC
BELLHAVEN PROPERTY LLC
CENTER MANAGEMENT GROUP LLC
STAFFDIRECTOR LLC
APPROVED STAFFING LLC
682 PELHAM ROAD LLC
680 PELHAM ROAD LLC
KFG RECEIVER LLC
KFG OPERATING I LLC
HOPKINS RECEIVER LLC
KFG OPERATING TWO LLC
KFG LAND TWO LLC
KFG LAND I LLC
HOPKINS VENTURES LLC
APPROVED RESTORATION CONTRACTING LLC
CLOVER LAKE MANAGEMENT LLC
CLOVER LHCSA MANAGEMENT LLC
WESTCHESTER LHCSA MANAGEMENT LLC
SMITHTOWN HEALTH CARE PROPERTY LLC

4) King David Center for Nursing (was Sephardic Nursing and Rehab)

2266 Cropsey Ave
Brooklyn NY 11214
Review:

https://npidb.org/organizations/nursing_and_custodial_care/skilled-nursing-facility_314000000x/1841613163.aspx

11/29/2015 – by SANDY for SGRNC LLC
 “Staffing on each floor has been more than cut in half. Today my mother was given a pastrami sandwich which was green molded. Only 2 doctors are in house and only twice a week so at most times there are no doctors available to see patients. Patients are now sent to the ER for minor complaints such as a fever. When it was the Sephardic Home there were many more nurses and aides. The quality of care is very poor.”

 

 

How Alluring, More Lies

 

ALLURING LIES

April 26, 2016

Rivington Street and the seemingly inexplicable lifting of a deed restriction “without the Mayor’s knowledge” is only one in a long string of lies, about which Mayor De Blasio has teeter-tottered between speaking and refusing to speak. We are just waiting to find a connection between Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, a connection that is so alluring but seems to be eluding us. 

POST: Mayor “Caught in a Lie” on Rivington House

http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2016/04/post-mayor-caught-in-a-lie-on-rivington-house.html#

 

According to a report over the weekend in the New York Post, high-ranking officials in the de Blasio administration were “frantically” trying to reinstate the Rivington House deed restriction in late February.

There have been shifting stories from the administration about when the mayor’s office learned that the deed had been changed. The decision from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in November allowed the Allure group to sell the former AIDS hospice to luxury condo developers for $116 million.

Mayor de Blasio said he only learned about it when the city’s comptroller launched an investigation of the matter (that was on March 7). The New York Times reported earlier this month that Anthony Shorris, first deputy mayor, had begun looking into the deed change in late February.  Now the Post chimes in with new details that suggest another high-ranking official had been dealing with the situation:

On Feb. 24, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen’s chief of staff frantically offered a $16.1 million refund to The Allure Group… In return for the refund, Allure was told, the city sought a long-term care facility or affordable housing, according to a source close to the negotiations and evidence reviewed by The Post. Those two options were what “the Mayor’s ­Office wants,” James Patchett, chief of staff to Glen, told Allure’s rep, the source said… But a crestfallen Patchett — who blamed a bungling city agency for the whole mess — was told it was too late; the sale had already gone through. An increasingly desperate Patchett persisted, calling the situation an “important issue to us” and saying he would “highly encourage” Allure to change the outcome, the source said.

Allure purchased the building, 45 Rivington St., from VillageCare in February of 2015 for $28 million. According to the Post, Allure balked at paying $16 million to change the deed, which required the building to be used as a not-for-profit health care facility. De Blasio has said Allure promised to continue operating the Lower East Side nursing home. Now a source tells the Post that Allure made it clear to city officials it could not afford to keep the center open after paying the $16 million. The administration, says the tabloid, was intent on collecting its fee from the company:

The city Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which handled the negotiations, was determined to get all it could. In fact, DCAS was so anxious to get the cash that in January 2015 it urged Village Care, the former owner of the nursing home, to “expeditiously” submit documents to complete the deed deal. Assistant DCAS Commissioner Randal Fong wrote a Jan. 9, 2015, letter, obtained by The Post, to Emma DeVito, the CEO of the nonprofit Village Care, which ran the AIDS facility. It said: “Please confirm in writing that you agree to the value to ­remove the restrictions.”

Just in case you were having trouble drawing your own conclusions from the Post story, a separate editorial today spells it out:

On Sunday, The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein caught Mayor de Blasio himself in a lie… How could word of the coming public-relations nightmare not make it back to de Blasio? Unless his minions are simply afraid to bring him bad news, the mayor lied about when he learned of the mess.

Community Board 3 Wants Reversal of Deed Restriction

MAYOR DE BLASIO, YOU MAY WANT TO READ YOUR MAIL – Allure and Rivington

Updated on 19 October 2016 – Removed photograph of Joel Landau through Fair Use Request

April 26, 2016

The LoDown reports:

Community Board 3: Too Early to Talk Compensation; Return Rivington House Now

“Community Board 3 tomorrow night is likely to take a stronger position than that of local elected officials in calling for the return of Rivington House to the Lower East Side as a health care facility.

On April 7, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council member Margaret Chin, along with CB3 Chairperson Gigi Li, held a news conference outside the former nursing home to “demand compensation for the loss of Rivington House” (press release). The city lifted a deed restriction, enabling the Allure Group to sell the property to luxury condo developers, profiting $72 million.

At last week’s executive committee meeting, Li said a new resolution was being proposed to drive home the point that it’s too early for talk of “compensating” the community for the loss of Rivington House. “We should not give up” on reversing the “deed change so easily,” she told other board members.

A draft resolution to be considered by the full board tomorrow night reads, in part, “CB3 is adamant that the sale of the deed restriction be reversed and the complete deed restriction for Rivington House be reinstated and now calls on Mayor de Blasio to return Rivington House to its use as a skilled nursing facility.”

On Jan. 27, Community Board 3 sent the mayor a resolution strongly criticizing the deed reversal, which had first been reported by The Lo-Down on Dec. 18. The resolution was apparently not read by anyone in the mayor’s office, at least not anyone in authority. The mayor has said he did not learn about the issue until March, when Comptroller Scott Stringer launched an investigation.”

de Blasio Knew of Rivington Deal!

*** BREAKING ***

EVIDENCE THAT DE BLASIO KNEW OF THE ALLURE DEAL!

 

Top officials tried to undo Rivington House deal:

http://therealdeal.com/2016/04/25/top-officials-tried-to-undo-rivington-house-deal-report/

“That outcome was reportedly referred to as what “the Mayor’s Office wants,” apparently contradicting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s repeated claim that he only learned of the deal through press reports, which began in late March.”

De Blasio’s ‘ordinary politics’ defense rings of Shelly Silver

April 25, 2016

From the New York Post:

Team de Blasio is answering charges that it massively broke state election laws by calling its fund-raising “ordinary politics.” Hmm: The last local to use that defense, ex-Speaker Sheldon Silver, will be sentenced for his crimes next month.

The memo from Risa Sugerman, chief enforcement counsel for the state Board of Elections, charges the mayor and his top aides went far beyond the usual tricks in trying to hand the state Senate to Democrats in 2014.

It alleges they used taxpayer time and taxpayer equipment for the schemes. “I don’t recall ever hearing or reading about anything like that — someone saying the mayor of New York [was] raising campaign funds right out of City Hall,” said veteran local political consultant Jerry Skurnik.

The memo also suggests the operation not only directed the cash to upstate county committees, but also told the committees what campaigns to send the funds to.

At a minimum, we still have the mayor, his chief political operative and his top fund-raiser soliciting individuals who do business with the city for donations to remote county committees. Why give, except to win favors from City Hall?

Mind you, the mayor has raised private funds to the tune of $40 million these last three years, when you include his various pocket nonprofits.

Questions about the giving belatedly prompted the mayor to shut down his pet nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, this year — after Common Cause/NY asked the city Conflicts of Interest
Board and the Campaign Finance Board to look into it.

For years, de Blasio has been raising millions and directing the funds to his various causes — and then shuttling the cash around between multiple entities.

It may be that the 2014 shenanigans struck his team as “ordinary politics” because it was just another form of what had become ordinary to them. Will US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan DA Cy Vance see it the same way?