FAYETTEVILLE — Regulators will allow the state-run Fayetteville Veterans Home to accept Medicaid and Medicare residents for the first time in two months, administrators announced Friday.
The home’s participation in those programs was at risk after a patient died there in January. Home administrators failed to report for three weeks that neglect was involved. Regulators determined progress on problems is being made, according to an announcement from the state Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees the home.
“Everyone at the Fayetteville home, staff and administrators, has been working to implement plans of corrective action and increase training,” said Cissy Rucker, director of the Veterans Department. State Office of Long-Term Care inspectors where at the home for three days, ending Thursday, in their latest inspection and recommended to federal regulators the home be allowed to admit new patients, she said.
The home was prohibited from accepting new Medicare and Medicaid patients after Feb. 8 because state law requires staff to report neglect violations by 11 a.m. the next business day. The patient death Jan. 15 was not reported to state Office of Long-Term Care regulators until Feb. 5.
“Actions speak louder than words. Time will tell,” said Martha Deaver, president of the Arkansas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents. “I can only pray they are going to start following the federal regulations they are required to follow so abuse and neglect of these veterans will finally come to an end and so will the cover-up,”
Although both the Veterans Department and the Office of Long-Term Care are state agencies, they are separate. The Veterans Department is a standalone agency while the Office of Long-Term Care is a part of the separate state Department of Human Services.
According to inspectors’ reports, a physical therapist couldn’t waken the patient for his appointment and called for help from the nurse on duty. That nurse replied that she had recently seen the patient and continued eating lunch.
Immediate steps are required by law in neglect cases to ensure the safety of other patients. These weren’t followed, investigators found. The nurse found responsible for the neglect remained in charge of 50 patients, according to the long-term care office. The nurse has been fired, according to the Veterans Department.
Long-Term Care inspectors declared patients were in “immediate jeopardy” at the nursing home Feb. 8, the most severe level of violation. The agency then turned its report over to federal health administrators. The regional office for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services agreed with the findings. The federal office informed the Veterans Home administration that the home was at risk of losing certification if problems were not fixed.
Further investigation by the Long-Term Care office found a patient’s arm was broken Dec. 8 and four employees filed false statements about what happened. Three of those workers were fired for filing false reports, and the fourth would have been if that worker had not already been fired for other causes, the Veterans Department said.
The Veterans Department closed a nursing home in Little Rock in October after years of mismanagement, which included charging fees to residents the agency couldn’t legally charge, according to a state audit.