A lawsuit filed Monday accuses Brentwood, TN-based Brookdale Senior Living of lying to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to inflate the star ratings awarded to its California skilled nursing facilities. The ratings, which appear on CMS’ Care Compare website, are used by prospective residents and family members to help make decisions on where to move.
The legal action was brought by a coalition including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is President Biden’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and several district and city attorneys. It also claims that Brookdale “ignored laws that protect patients’ safety when they are discharged from a facility.”
The accusations involve Brookdale SNFs in 10 California cities: Bakersfield, Camarillo, Carlsbad, Northridge, Rancho Mirage, San Diego, San Dimas, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Rosa and Yorba Linda.
“Choosing a skilled nursing facility is no simple task. Seniors, people with disabilities and their families rely heavily on accurate data to make that decision. …We will ensure that they face consequences for violating the public’s trust,” Beccera said in a statement.
Brookdale is the largest senior living company in the country. Nationwide, only 3% of its portfolio mix is in skilled nursing, according to a December 2020 presentation posted on the company’s website. Fifty-three percent is in assisted living, 27% is in independent living, and 17% is in memory care.
The lawsuit alleges that Brookdale over-reported nursing staffing hours to CMS and was awarded “undeserved” four- and five-star ratings (on a scale of one to five), thus violating the Unfair Competition Law and the False Advertising Law.
Unflattering picture
The lawsuit was filed two days after publication of a New York Times article that painted an unflattering picture of the nursing home industry. That article claimed that Brookdale Richmond Place, a SNF in Lexington, KY, misrepresented to CMS the number of hours of daily care each resident received, including in the calculations employees at the corporate headquarters 200 miles away. The data, according to the Times, likely increased the facility’s star ratings by one or two stars.
Heather Hunter, a spokeswoman for Brookdale, told the media outlet, “We have detailed policies in place to ensure compliance with CMS reporting rules, and we are not aware of any instance where inaccurate or false information was submitted by any of our communities outside of the confines of the CMS rules.”
The California lawsuit is among the first to accuse a nursing home operator of submitting inaccurate information to CMS for the five-star rating system, according to a separate article in the Times.
Discharges and transfers
The California lawsuit also alleges that Brookdale did not properly notify or prepare residents, patients and families for transfers and discharges out of the SNFs. Skilled nursing facilities are required to give notice that is at least 30 days in advance of a transfer or discharge, or is as soon as practicable. “As a result of these actions, Brookdale endangered the health of its patients and also left families scrambling to find other places to care for their loved ones,” according to the coalition.
“We are holding Brookdale accountable for artificially increasing its profits by cutting corners when transferring or discharging its patients. It lured individuals to its facilities through false promises about providing the highest quality care,” Becerra said.
Brookdale had not responded to a request for comment from McKnight’s Senior Living by the publication deadline.
