By: Benyamin Davidsons

A nursing home in Long Island has sparked criticism with state officials claiming that the current owners have created conditions that put residents’ health and safety at risk.

As reported by Crain’s NY, Attorney General Letitia James ordered the current owners of Cold Spring Hills to appoint an independent health care monitor in light of state investigations.  Last week’s order for a temporary oversight body that will manage the nursing home’s finances highlights previously reported employee conflicts, financial fraud and concern over resident care at Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Woodbury.

The AG’s call for a temporary oversight is in addition to calls for a new owner to be appointed to take over the facility permanently.  In early September, the Department of Health filed a petition to appoint an emergency caretaker at the nursing home, which will completely takeover resident care and operational responsibilities, as per legal documents.  Dr. James McDonald, state health commissioner, said in court documents that this petition is in compliance with state law, which allows officials to appoint a new operator at nursing homes when conditions are “dangerous to the life, health, or safety of residents of a facility.”  McDonald said, “Such conditions exist at Cold Spring Hills.”

Per Crain’s, over the last year, Cold Springs has been in the news for multiple complaints.  Most recently, some 400 employees represented by health care union 1199 SEIU complained that the nursing home stopped paying for their health care benefits. The union says that the nursing home owes it roughly $5 million after it missed payments for at least three months.  The nursing home is also the subject of a sprawling state investigation into its alleged financial mismanagement and patient care conditions. In December, AG James sued Cold Spring Hills questioning misuse of $22.6 million in Medicare and Medicaid money,  and alleging neglect to residents. Last year, the attorney General filed a series of such cases against nursing home operators in a widespread crackdown targeting the state’s large operators.

Cold Spring Hills, a 588-bed for-profit facility, is owned by a group of well-known operators including Bent Philipson,  Avi Philipson, Benjamin Landa, among a dozen other owners. The fifteen defendants, named in the attorney general’s case, own 37 nursing homes in the state, and another 200 nursing homes across the country, per federal data. “These are not small players,” said Bill Hammond, a senior fellow for health policy at Empire Center for Public Policy.  The problem is that the crackdown has been so wide, that there may not be any largescale nursing home operators left who are willing to take over as caretakers and who haven’t already been sued themselves by the AG, Hammond told Crain’s.  “If you really bring the hammer down on those people and say, ‘look, you can’t operate in the state anymore,’ you’re gonna have dozens and dozens of homes with no owners,” Hammond said.

The health department’s petition to permanently replace the operator at Cold Spring Hills is the first time the agency has intervened in one of the attorney general’s recent nursing home cases, Hammond noted.  He added that their move to take action is based not on resident care issues but on the union’s complaints regarding employee benefits.   “This is the department’s job, to make sure nursing homes are well-run, safe and treat their residents properly,” Hammond said.