Coalition criticizes potential buyer of Lancaster Manor
Lincoln Journal Star
By Algis J. Laukaitis
July 21, 2009
A group that is fighting to keep Lancaster Manor from being sold has asked the County Board to stop negotiating with the sole potential buyer because, the group alleges, the potential owner has a bad track record of running nursing homes.
The Save the Manor Coalition claims Hunter Management, based in Evanston, Ill., is owned by the Rothner family, which owns interest in more than 40 nursing homes throughout the Midwest, including Nebraska.
“Over and over again the various nursing homes and related companies owned by this family have proven to be among the most low quality facilities in the country,” said Kim Kaspar, co-leader of the coalition, in a news release.
Kaspar is president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2568, the union that represents employees of the county-owned nursing home.
The coalition, through its attorney, Gary Young, released a report Monday night questioning the Rothner family’s ability to provide quality care in its nursing homes, something that the County Board has repeatedly said was its highest priority.
The investigative report was compiled through the use of the Internet, newspaper articles and other reports about quality care. Among its findings:
* Of the 45 nursing homes owned in part or whole by the Rothner family, 20 have one-star ratings on Medicare five-star ratings program. One star means they were much worse than average. In many cases, the Rothner-owned nursing homes were the worst rated homes in their cities.
* Rothner nursing homes were assessed $780,000 in fines between 2001 and 2009, according to Medicare reports. Fines ranged from $10,000 to $50,000.
* Some of the Rothner nursing homes had deficiency ratings two or three times their state’s average; one nursing home in Canton, Ohio, was seven times the state average.
* Young cited numerous newspaper accounts which detailed violations at Rothner nursing homes. For example, in 2006, a nursing home in Hazel Crest, Ill., was fined $20,000 by the state after a patient suffering from dementia was found dead. She had been dead for 14 hours before anyone noticed. In another instance, an inspector found a 97-year-old woman, lying in her own waste with severe bruises on her arm, foot and both legs that staff could not immediately explain.
* In September 2005, an Illinois grand jury filed criminal indictments against a nursing home owned by several members of the Rothner family. The indictment, according to Young, said the home had failed to provide adequate medical care to a 48-year-old cancer patient who died at the facility. The nursing home was eventually fined by a criminal court.
Contacted earlier in the day, County Board Chairman Bernie Heier said he had not “heard a thing” about the allegations. He also said the county board has not investigated Hunter Management’s history of operating nursing homes.
“I’m just not commenting at anything at this time because I don’t have any information,” Heier said. “We’ll just have to see if the allegations are true.”
Heier did say that the County Board did look into the record of care at Homestead Rehabilitation Center at 4735 S. 54 St., which was acquired by Hunter Management about a year and a half ago. Citing privacy concerns, he declined to discuss details.
“Our facilities strive to achieve good care for the residents and positive work environment for our employees. We have built a number of programs to assist facilities with regulatory compliance and improve the quality of care,” said Anna Polyak, corporate compliance attorney with Extended Care Clinical, LLC. Hunter Management is affiliated with Extended Care Clinical.
Polyak, who also commented before seeing the coalition’s report, said the programs involve additional resources, education and training of its facilities’ staffs.
“We are also proud of many of our facilities, including Homestead Rehabilitation Center … that had good surveys from regulatory agencies,” she wrote.
Polyak said that after Hunter Management took over operation of Homestead in April 2008, it made improvements in a number of areas.
“We have done so by working closely with (the) facility’s many long-term employees, the community and local hospitals,” she wrote. “We look forward to working with the community and employees on a successful transition with Lancaster Manor.”
Young alleged that the Homestead Rehabilitation Center was in the bottom 25 percent of all nursing homes rated by Medicare.
Young told more than 200 people who attended a town hall meeting Monday evening in Lincoln that the coalition bears no ill will toward the Rothners but the report was compiled because the manor is “a matter of public concern.”
Some people in the audience, which included many manor employees, wondered if the County Board and its advisory committee had looked into the background of Hunter Management and the Rothner family.
Said Steve Foral of Lincoln: “Either you didn’t look or you found it and ignored it. I want to know what you did!”
Commissioner Larry Hudkins, who attended the town hall meeting, said he had heard rumors about Hunter Management but was assured by Commissioner Bob Workman, who told him that he had done a Google search, that the company was A-1.
“I don’t believe that the County Board understands the history of these folks that I’ve told you,” Young told the audience.
When the County Board issued a Request for Qualifications solicitation earlier this year, Hunter Management offered to buy or lease the manor. It was the only entity that expressed an interested in buying the nursing home. The current assessed value of the manor is $5 million. But the County Board’s advisory committee put a $10 million value on the manor in its report.
Four members of the County Board — Heier, Ray Stevens, Bob Workman and Deb Schorr — have voted to sell the manor. Hudkins opposes the sale, saying the manor just needs a qualified, experienced administrator to solve its financial problems.
Losses have ranged from $351,000 in September to $299,000 in January. The manor is projected to lose $3.5 million this fiscal year and some commissioners are concerned they may have to use taxes to keep it in the black.
Some members in Monday night’s audience questioned how the County Board could spend millions of dollars on a new jail, yet not support a nursing home for the elderly who have nowhere else to go.
Others were angry that four of the commissioners voted to sell the manor two days after a long public hearing, where all the speakers opposed such a sale. They accused the four commissioners of not listening.
Gwen Thorpe, the interim administrator at the manor, drew criticism from some audience members. Some said she was ruining the good reputation of the manor.
Said Courtney Elliott, who has two family members there: “She is running it into the ground. The people there deserve better!”
When asked by another woman to stand if they agreed, most of the audience did, including Hudkins.
Young and others urged the audience to attend Tuesday’s meeting of the County Board and voice their concerns about the Rothner family and present the board with facts from the coalition’s report.
“If this research is credible, you got something,” Hudkins told the audience.
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