Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
The Office of Inspector General developed new approaches in 2014 to target substandard care in skilled nursing facilities, including but not limited to, focused inspections on facilities’ that have a previous record of non-compliance, and conducting investigations more frequently for repeat offenders. State enforcement levels vary in accordance with many variables, some of which are based upon a handful of poor providers of care.
Since last October, the Pennsylvania Department of Health has been ram
ping up already heightened enforcement actions. Regulators have started using a more rigorous penalty system after coming under criticism for being too each on substandard quality of care. Statewide records show a jump from 18 penalties with fines of $65,750 in 2014, to 108 penalties and fines of $774,750 so far in 2017. Penalties cited were mostly for incidents where inadequate supervision or care resulted in harm to residents-including two deaths. One involved a failure to provide medicine to treat low blood sugar, and one involved chest pain for which a doctor was not immediately summoned. Another instance was for water that was too hot.
