Consulate Health Care, the largest for-profit nursing home chain in Florida, failed to comply with the state’s minimum staffing standards in 16% of its facilities for the first quarter of 2013 and has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a just-released report by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers, on Tuesday.
Recognized by the Orlando Business Journal as one of the fastest-growing companies in Central Florida, the report finds that 36% of Consulate nursing homes are on Florida’s watch list “for not meeting state standards, or for not making corrections quickly enough,” reporters learned on a conference call today.
As a result, the health care company has had to pay out a whopping $397,250 in state fines, with Consultate’s Deltona Healthcare receiving Florida’s largest single federal fine of $679,900, in recent history.
The report also found that in addition to nearly 16 percent of Consulate’s facilities being below the state’s mandated 2.5 Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) hours per resident per day standard, an additional 62% of facilities are below the Florida average of 2.79 CNA hours per day.
Brian Lee, Executive Director for Better Care, a non-profit advocacy organization creating public awareness of the nation’s nursing homes, likened the declining staffing levels and associated fall in quality health care to “setting a time bomb, which when it reverberates, could be catastrophic leading to much suffering and even death.”
The report also looked at a number of quality indicators such as pressure ulcers, depression, falls with major injuries, antipsychotic medication usage and physical restraints. On many of these indicators, Consulate Health Care was found to be lacking.
Particularly, regarding pressure ulcers, the study revealed that 63% of reporting Consulate’s Florida facilities have a higher percent of high risk long-stay residents with pressure ulcers than the Florida average. And nearly 37% of Florida Consulate facilities have a higher percentage of short-stay residents who received antipsychotic medication than the Florida average. The use of antipsychotic medications at Consulate nursing homes was above average in all but one of the homes for the first quarter of 2013, the report found.
“There are many good nursing homes which have helped Florida earn a “B” rating,” said Lee. “…But more recently, the Florida Legislature has rolled back many of the protections guarding quality care in Florida nursing homes.”
Lee said that, the business of nursing homes is a highly profitable one and much more transparency is needed to determine who owns them and to better allow state officials to track taxpayer dollars.
“Eighty percent of nursing home residents are subsidized and we just don’t know if these monies are going into the care of residents,” he said. “Far greater oversight of nursing homes is needed.”
“As we mark October as Long-Term Care Planning month, our parents, our families and residents in nursing homes deserve quality care,” Lee concluded.
My father was in North Fort MYers FL Consulate Facility about 2 years ago and received the best care ever! He complained that he needed and wanted more attention, but we knew that he was getting the attention that he needed!
My father died in Consulate in North Fort Myers on Nov. 12. This occured about one month after I’d made it clear to his Public Guardian the reasons why there was near net gain to be had by liquidating his homestead and laying out the numerous causes of action he had against Consulate, if said Guardian wanted to know where the real money was at. Consulate had sneaked that guardian up on this family over a ten month period. I’ve alays believed there was collusion between those entities intended to reap financial gain in excess of the legitimate. Prior to Consulate’s seeking of guardianship, their administrator had me “no trespassed” from my Dad’s facility for merely seeking to review their business and administrative records concerning him. The sociopaths sundered our relationship through the end of his life. I need his remains autopsied and don’t have the $6000 to do that. If there’s a tort attorney out there viewing this whom may think there’s something significant to sue upon, contact me soon. I don’t know how much longer I can stand in the way of cremmation.
“near net gain” should have been “near no net gain”.
Further, Dad initially landed in Consulate for short term rehab/physical therapy directly from Lee Memorial Hospital; assumed problem to be addressed: gout, arthritis or pseudo gout. Consulate’s Dr.s began treating a type II diabetic with mild/moderate vascular dementia with steroids to combat an ASSUMPTION. They should have drawn fluid to be certain. End result: They consistently blasted his blood glucose through the roof, irrefutably doing more harm where the dementia was concerned, as well as other microscopic blood vessel containing organs.
He’d also either contracted c. diff. in the hospital or in Consulate’s facility. Both institutions appear to have attempted to hide the fact he’d possibly contracted it in their facility. He came to Consulate on a continuing course of antibitics but for no reason Consulate’s nurses could initially tell me, nor for any finding of infectiion disclosed by the hospital records I procured months later. All I was told throughout Dad’s initial month in Consulate was he had a “bowel infection” they were also treating him for. I was told, in the week before he was released to me, the infection had been cured. The c. diff. came roaring back with a vengeance in the ten days he was with me and, of course, I was forced to put him back in. Only after that was I informed he had c. diff. and what c. dif. is. It’s as if they released Dad to me knowing it wasn’t cured (it was patched over, at best) and presuming (rightly) they’d get him back. From that day forward (if not earlier), everything they did and didn’t do seems to have been designed to ensure he’d never vacate their facility during his life.
Mom fell in the nursing home bathroom, laid in a pool of blood for four hours before being found. They called EMT and I arrived at the same time. She has broken shoulder in two areas, broken pelvis in two areas cracked ribs, spinal break(they the spinal break think it might be from a previous fall, and need eight stitches. When she was seen in the emergency room they also found a bed sore. The nurse said the last time they saw her was at lunch at 12 noon for four hours she laid on the bathroom floor before being found. Mom stayed in hospital for a week, now in rehab needs oxygen, foley (she has bladder bleeding from the pelvic break. Rehab stated she has black and blues all over her body from the fall.
After being in rehab for 5 days she developed pneumonia and a urinary infection stayed in the hospital another week and is now back in rehab. She will never be able to walk again, move without assistance or feed herself.
I visited mom nightly at the nursing home and several times found her in soiled clothing bedding etc. She fell once before(mom said she was trying to get back into bed) she was bent over on one side and I wanted her seen by a neuro doctor, they never brought her. Met with the social worker and nursing director they said they would set up the appointment that was 5 weeks ago and never did. They complained because mom needed help getting into the bed they stated I don’t believe you have to go to the bathroom stuck there hands in her pants to check. They also told her they are watching her to make sure she really has to go to the bathroom and that she is not just making them come in to help. I told them I wanted her looked in on every 15mins of course they never did. She twice punched and hit another time by the same resident I had her removed from that dining room.
She has been unable to walk or move since the accident.