In nursing home sale, supervisors push ahead, despite concerns

Dec. 20--QUEENSBURY -- Warren County supervisors voted Friday to forge ahead with the sale of Westmount Health Facility, despite new concerns raised about the intended buyer and interest from another potential buyer.

The board first defeated a motion to table the resolution, then voted to go ahead with the sale of the 80-bed nursing home and adjacent land to two limited liability corporations that are subsidiaries of New York City-based Centers for Specialty Care Group.

The approval means the closing on a sale contract could occur this spring.

Six supervisors voted against the $2.3 million sale, citing concerns raised in a New York Times article this week about the death of a resident in a nursing home the company owns, which is alleged to have stemmed from physical abuse.

A $6.5 million fine for Medicaid fraud paid by an affiliated company, and data that showed significant numbers of residents being put on psychotropic drugs, caused several supervisors and members of the public to voice concern.

Concerns were also expressed about the county's ability to take action against the new LLCs being set up to buy the home.

Chester Supervisor Fred Monroe said he had been prepared to approve the sale, but said the concerns raised Friday changed his mind.

"I'm really very concerned about what I'm hearing," he said. "These are all serious allegations that need to be investigated."

"I think it sheds some concern on my part ... relative to the purchase we're involved with here," said Glens Falls 2nd Ward Supervisor Peter McDevitt.

McDevitt said he also had concerns with state laws that do not set minimum staffing levels for nursing homes. Queensbury at-Large Supervisor Mark Westcott raised an issue of an aborted sale between the company and Suffolk County that ended with that county's home closing.

Dusek said he spoke with the company's chief financial officer and was told the company did not own the facility that was fined for Medicaid fraud, and had served only as a consultant to it. The death case is alleged to have stemmed from a single employee, he said.

"They are obviously very upset and concerned about what happened," Dusek said.

County leaders visited two nursing homes the company runs downstate, with the county choosing which ones it would see, and visited the home in Fulton County that Centers for Specialty Care Group bought from that county.

"From everything we could see, they were well-maintained," Dusek said.

The lawyer the county retained to negotiate the sale, Lawrence Paltrowitz, also said the company gave staff the option to keep their jobs, kept the facility unionized and raised pay 6 percent when taking over Washington County'sPleasant Valley Infirmary in 2013.

In addition to buying Pleasant Valley Infirmary and Fulton County's home, Centers for Specialty Care Group also bought Essex County's nursing home in 2012.

Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty said the concerns about the company are being explored, but he didn't see a reason to back off the sale.

"We see supervisors from these counties every month and we haven't heard a word from any of them about Specialty Care," Geraghty said.

A phone message left at the company's headquarters was not returned Friday.

The county also received this week a letter of interest in Westmount from VestraCare, a western New York company that has bought a number of county-owned nursing homes in the state. But the letter did not include a price, and the company did not respond to the 2012 request for proposal that led to Centers for Specialty Care group and two other suitors making formal offers.

Warren County is selling the home because it has been losing millions of dollars annually. The county has budgeted to operate Westmount through the end of May.

State approval of the sale will be needed before a closing can occur, and it has been estimated that approval will take 3 to 6 months.

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