Federal Officials Order Shutdown Of Nursing Home Corporation, However, Negotiating With Regulators To Keep It Open

Federal health officials plan to shut down a Spokane Valley nursing home flagged repeatedly for poor care and failure to protect residents from accidental injuries.

Valleycrest Nursing and Rehabilitation Center must close by Sept. 14 and find new homes for its 80 residents.

The looming closure would be only the second time regulators have shut down a Spokane nursing home in the past 19 years.

A spokesman for Unicare, which owns Valleycrest and three other Spokane nursing homes, said he’s hopeful ongoing negotiations with regulators will keep the home open.

“Yes, it’s the 11th hour,” Mike Mervis said. “But lots of good things get done at the 11th hour.”

The Health Care Financing Administration sent a notice to Valleycrest on Wednesday, announcing termination of Medicare and Medicaid funding at the facility.

The action follows six months of wrangling between Valleycrest and the state, culminating in a recent inspection of the facility at 12715 E. Mission.

In April, inspectors said a woman was going hungry even though she was asking for food. A worker also had withheld insulin from a diabetic as punishment, inspectors noted.

Valleycrest officials disagreed with the complaints, saying they did not mistreat residents.

During an early August inspection, however, regulators found more violations. An 84-year-old woman had fallen four times, fracturing her hip and her toes, in a five-day period.

“It is clear that Valleycrest is not protecting residents from accidents (and) has not corrected its system of investigating accidents and injuries,” the federal termination notice stated.

“After that last inspection, the state recommended closure,” explained Edith Coleman, district manager for the state Department of Aging and Adult Services.

Coleman, who oversees 44 Eastern Washington nursing homes, said she has never before recommended a facility be closed.

“They have a long history of non-compliance,” she said of Valleycrest. “We can safely say their past performance has not been good and they continue to be out of compliance. This is important, when you’re talking about care.”

Coleman said there are enough vacancies in Spokane nursing homes to absorb Valleycrest residents, one of whom has lived at the home for 17 years.

Unicare’s Mervis said Valleycrest has already changed some policies and procedures to satisfy the state.

He summed up the conflict this way: “I think it has been a combination of past management problems at our end” and disagreements over the severity of the home’s problems.

Mervis said the Valleycrest predicament is the only time in the past decade that one of Unicare’s 180-plus nursing homes faced closure.

“Needless to say we’re taking it very seriously,” Mervis said.

Valleycrest residents and families are working on a letter campaign to block the closure, Mervis said, declining to discuss where displaced residents would go.

“We don’t even want to consider the worst-case scenario,” he said. “There’s too many things to do before that occurs.”

Coleman said Valleycrest will receive one more inspection before the closure date, and if inspectors are impressed, the home has a chance of staying open.

The Milwaukee-based Unicare also owns Southcrest, at 110 W. Cliff. Problems at Southcrest concerned regulators enough to stop the home from admitting new patients.

Unicare’s other two Spokane homes, Franklin Hills and The Gardens on University, are in good standing with the state.

The last Spokane nursing home to be closed was the Riverpark Living Centers on Downriver Drive in 1992. That home was closed by because state officials said where residents’ safety was “seriously threatened.”

, DataTimes