Nursing home admissions suspension lifted

Tennessee Department of Health announced Monday its decision to lift a 15-day admissions suspension at Bedford County Nursing Home.

"I find, based upon the follow-up survey report that the deficient practices and conditions detrimental to the health, safety, or welfare of the residents were corrected and the facility has returned to substantial compliance," said Susan Cooper, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health, in a letter to BCNH administrator Wayne Schumann.

Admissions were suspended and the facility was slapped with hefty fines following a May 25 incident in which a resident died after falling out of a lift chair. The state found the nursing home to be at fault in this matter.

Since that time, Schumann has made several corrections to the facility and has worked toward getting the admissions suspension lifted.

Department of Health surveyors reviewed the facility July 8-10 to determine that the nursing home's deficiencies had indeed been corrected, Cooper said.

While reviewing the nursing home last week, the state also determined a second death at the nursing home that occurred late June to be an accident. The nursing home will receive no penalties regarding that incident.

The nursing home was charged $6,550 per day, beginning May 25, in federal civil penalty fines and a $3,000 state fine. Schumann estimates they'll be charged the $6,550 for 38 days, in which total fines would exceed $248,900.

"There are still a lot of questions to be answered about that," said Schumann, who still is waiting to hear the official total.

Depending on the total cost of the fine, Schumann has a couple of options. He can argue at a hearing that the nursing home was actually in compliance with the state June 17 (24 days of fines as opposed to 38), which would drop the total federal civil fines to about $157,000.

The second option is to pay the fines in total, in which case they'd receive a 35 percent discount, dropping the total to about $161,785.

"It may be cheaper to just pay the fines," Schumann said, by the time they factor in attorney and other fees.

Schumann said they're still looking at their options and waiting to receive the official total from officials.