Manor Administration was Fine
Posted 10-14-1996
As many of you probably read in the daily papers, Westmoreland County recently fired its
Nursing Home Administrator and hired a management firm, Complete Care Services, of
Horsham, Pennsylvania to operate the facility. I opposed the move, not because I believe
Complete Care is not a capable, qualified firm, but because the Administrator had done an
excellent job and was dismissed for the wrong reasons.
Our nursing home, Westmoreland Manor, is a
quality facility operating on a $27 million annual budget. Westmoreland County is
responsible for about $1.5 million of the funding and the remainder comes from Medicare or
Medicaid reimbursements (also your tax dollars) and residents Social Security
contributions. Since taking office I have looked at the operations at the Manor because I
want the facility run as efficiently as possible with the care of the residents being the
most important issue.
Early this year we replaced the firm
providing x-ray services because of numerous problems with service. The replacement firm
was awarded the contract after several proposals were evaluated competitively. Next we
examined the issue of cleaning products. This issue could be an entire article in itself
but the bottom line is we are now purchasing cleaning products through a hospital buying
group at a lower price.
This summer we awarded a contract to
Latrobe Hospital for respiratory services. It was done competitively after we solicited
proposals. We also attempted to do so for our laboratory services at the Manor. When our
former director recommended a Penn Township firm he fell out of the good graces of my
colleagues. This action, after the x-ray contract, the cleaning products, and the
respiratory contract led to his removal. He had enjoyed an outstanding reputation and had
nothing in his personnel file to merit dismissal.
That was one reason I opposed the hiring of
Complete Care Services. Our Administrator had done his job, tried to hire quality firms
through a competitive process and was dismissed. Then, we hire a firm to be responsible
for the management of our facility and do not even do it through a competitive process.
While we aren't bound by law to do so for professional services, it is truly the most
equitable way to hire firms and allows us to evaluate who is offering the taxpayers the
best deal. But for some reason my colleagues chose to hire this management firm without
even evaluating other proposals.
The new firm proposes to earn its
management fee, (.85% of Adjusted Gross Revenues) approximately $245,000, by either
reducing costs or increasing revenues. The fee is earned on top of the salary of the
administrator they will provide. I'm not sold on the idea of increasing reimbursements
because Medicare dollars are tax dollars too.
Complete Care wants a three year deal that
the county can only end with ninety days written notice before the contract's expiration
date. I will try to negotiate a shorter term contract favorable to the citizens of our
county. If they are confident in their ability to improve management, they should be
capable of achieving results in one year or two. I also want a thirty or sixty day
termination clause the way virtually all our other contracts are written. However, I do
pledge publicly to work with Complete Care to ensure the quality of resident care does not
suffer and we manage tax dollars as efficiently as possible. |
