State health-care investigators on Friday recommended fining a nursing home $360,000 for telling 52 Medicaid patients they would have to leave for a renovation project with no promise they would be allowed to return.
The Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center of Tampa, run by $3.5 billion nursing-home giant Vencor, had been renovated only three months ago.Company officials had first said it was just coincidence that all the patients were on Medicaid, then apologized Thursday and said they would stop discharging them.
Nevertheless, the state Agency for Health Care Administration said Friday the nursing home had discriminated against Medicaid patients and put their care in jeopardy.
"To deny good health-care service on the basis of payer source is simply wrong," said agency director Douglas Cook. "I'm offended by a corporate policy that excludes care for Medicaid patients."
W. Bruce Lunsford, chief executive office for Vencor, based in Louisville, Ky., said the company underestimated the effect of its decision to "decertify" Medicaid beds but insisted that patient care was never compromised.
Of the 52 patients who received discharge notices saying they had 30 days to leave, 10 had left the facility. All were invited back.
"The people who made the decisions don't know my father, don't know any of these old people," said Juan Oliva Jr., who brought back his 79-year-old father, a retired cigar worker who is recovering from a stroke. "They do it based strictly on money."
The state investigation showed the renovation simply involved some wallpaper, carpet and paint - meaning the evictions were not necessary and bolstering suspicion that Medicaid patients were being dumped, said Edie Ousley, spokeswoman for the state health-care agency.
Unlike most nursing homes in Florida, the home is not required to admit a certain number of Medicaid patients under its state license, she said. But the state cited the facility for violating other regulations.