November 15, 2007 - Joe Angelelli, PHI’s Pennsylvania State Director, testified before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Aging and Older Adult Services Committee on the sale of HCR Manor Care, a large for-profit chain, to a private equity group.The Pennsylvania hearing was part of a new focus on the buying of large nursing home chains by private equity firms, which began with an extensive investigative feature in the September 23 New York Times. The article examined that trend and documented a decline in average nurse staffing levels – and care quality – under private equity ownership.
In his November 13 testimony, Angelelli noted that Manor Care nursing homes in Pennsylvania already staff below the minimum level recommended in a 2001 report to Congress and expressed concerns that staffing levels would decline even more under private equity ownership. “The critical threshold for nursing assistants identified in the report to Congress is 2.8 hours per resident day for long-stay nursing home residents. The 2.01 hours per resident day observed in Manor Care nursing homes in Pennsylvania is clearly below that threshold,” said Angelelli.
Also testifying were Kevin Hefty, Vice President for SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania; Sarah Reese-Carter, the surviving daughter of a ManorCare resident; and David Adams, a resident of a ManorCare home in Pittsburgh.
“Manor Care may come under pressure to further cut staffing in order to service the massive $5.5 billion debt it will have once the deal is complete,” Hefty said. “SEIU estimates the increase in the interest expense alone in just the first year after the Carlyle takeover to be $400 million…. If Manor Care pays for the $400 million in higher interest payments by cutting costs evenly across the company, 177 CNAs will be cut from the company’s Pennsylvania homes. This would translate into a cut in the care each resident receives from CNAs from 2.0 hours to just 1.8 hours per day.”
Adams spoke of dedicated staff stretched so thin they could not provide adequate care, including a nursing assistant named Beth, who he said quit five days earlier because she would have been penalized for visiting her sick son in the hospital instead of working an extra shift. “If Manor Care doesn’t care for their staff, then how can they say that they truly care for their patients?” Adams asked. “I think that the type of care that you get from staff is a reflection of how they are treated on the job.”
Angelelli recommended that the Department of Health include the following in its review of Carlyle’s application and as a normal part of licensure approval:
- Assessment of facility’s level and stability of staffing
- Assessment of facility’s quality of care for residents
- Assessment of facility’s structural capacity to provide care
- Incentives to adopt human resource and management practices that promote quality of care
- Compliance and monitoring mechanisms
U.S. Senator and Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has called for a GAO study into long-term care ownership and the U.S House Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing today on the subject in Washington, D.C.
0 Response to “PHI Recommends Care in Reviewing Application to Buy Manor Care”