Acting New Jersey Comptroller Kevin Walsh issued three reports identifying the worst-performing nursing facilities in the state and the millions of dollars these facilities receive in Medicaid funding, despite the poor care they provide to residents over multiple years. See reports issued February 2022, September 2022, and March 2023. The Acting Comptroller recommended that the State impose stronger sanctions and that the facilities be barred from Medicaid if they fail to improve. He also recommended barring the owners of these facilities “from obtaining interests in or contracting with additional LTCs as a condition of continuing to receive Medicaid funding or declining to approve an entity’s participation in Medicaid.”
Under the New Jersey Medicaid Program Integrity and Protection Act (N.J. Stat. §§30:4D-53- 30:4D-60, the Medicaid Inspector General, located in the Office of the State Comptroller, has authority under §30:4D-57.d(2), “to pursue civil and administrative enforcement actions against those who engage in fraud, abuse, or illegal acts perpetrated with Medicaid,” including “the imposition of administrative sanctions, penalties, suspension of fraudulent, abuse, or illegal payments, and actions for civil recovery and seizure of property or other assets connected with such payments.” The Comptroller describes his statutory authority to “suspend and disqualify New Jersey Medicaid providers that provide poor quality care, commit fraud, and/or take other actions that are harmful to residents.”
In January 2024, the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) temporarily suspended four nursing facilities from Medicaid and ordered their owners to divest ownership.
- On January 4, 2024, OSC suspended from the Medicaid program the owners of Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center. In November 2023, the Department of Health stopped new admissions at Limecrest “and required Limecrest to hire a consultant to run the facility after finding it failed to conduct COVID-19 testing and provide medication to prevent a deadly outbreak.” On October 25, 2023, OSC had sought to disqualify Limecrest’s owners from operating a different New Jersey nursing facility, Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center. The Woodland owners appealed their disqualification, which was stayed.
- On January 16, 2024, OSC suspended from the Medicaid program Gail and Ezra Bogner, the owner (mother) and administrator (son), respectively, of the Princeton Care Center, effective March 28, 2024. The Princeton Care Center abruptly closed on September 1, 2023, over the Labor Day weekend. The Bogners implemented “an emergency evacuation plan that is normally reserved for situations like natural disasters.” The result was that all 72 residents were moved in fewer than 12 hours.
OSC gave Gail Bogner 100 days to divest her minority ownership in two other Medicaid-funded nursing homes in New Jersey, Fountain View Care Center and Tallwoods Care Center. If she does not divest, these additional facilities would no longer be eligible to receive Medicaid funding. Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh said, “‘The Bogners’ recklessness, neglect, and incredibly poor judgment caused serious harm and trauma to the residents of Princeton Care Center. It presents too serious of a risk to allow them to have influence over any other Medicaid-funded nursing homes.’”
- On January 25, 2024, OSC temporarily suspended from the Medicaid program the owners of Deptford Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare and Hammonton Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, and related entities, effective May 24. Both facilities are owned by Daryl Hagler and operated by Centers Health Care.
The suspension is based, in part, on litigation by the New York State Attorney General, who, in June 2023, accused Kenneth Rozenberg, Beth Rozenberg, and Daryl Hagler, owners of New York-based Centers Health Care, “of siphoning $83 million from nursing homes funded by New York Medicare and Medicaid to enrich themselves” at four of Centers’ New York nursing facilities. In July 2023, a New York state judge appointed a financial monitor and a health monitor to assess and manage operations at the four Centers Health Care facilities because of “‘repeated and persistent fraud.’”
Walsh said, “‘When there is evidence of fraud of this magnitude, and when a judge has acted to prevent further siphoning and self-dealing, we have a duty to act. To protect New Jersey Medicaid and the residents who rely on it, we must stop the flow of Medicaid funds to these individuals, and we must require them to step aside.’”
The State Comptroller imposes suspension while other action against the facility is pending. The goal of suspensions is replacing owners, not closing facilities.
The New Jersey State Comptroller’s actions to prevent owners/operators with a very poor record from continuing to operate any facilities in the state are a model for nursing home enforcement nationwide.
March 21, 2024 – T. Edelman