A Long Island nursing home is under fire from the New York attorney general's office after troubling, jaw-dropping allegations surfaced regarding abysmal patient care and a $22 million fraud by the owners of the facility.
Letitia James is taking legal action against Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, claiming there was financial fraud and rampant resident neglect in part due to severe understaffing.
An investigation by James' office found that the facility's owners diverted $22.6 million in Medicaid and Medicare funds from resident care through a network of 13 companies that were used to conceal profit-taking. Those companies allowed the nursing home to appear as if they were paying for services for the residents, but their real function was to hide who the actual owners of the facility were and to coordinate complex schemes to bilk as much money as possible, the attorney general's office said in the lawsuit.
More than $15 million in phony rent payments were mad to Cold Spring Realty — which just so happens to be owned by the same people who operate the nursing home, the investigation found. There was also more than $5 million allegedly paid for what was said to be "consulting."
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Through a variety of different alleged schemes and frauds, those who were named in the lawsuit transferred more than $42 million to the owners of the Woodbury facility and other related parties from 2016 to 2021 according to the investigation by attorney general's office.
As a result of the alleged fraud financial abuse and unnecessary staffing cuts, residents at the rehab center suffered badly and needlessly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the lawsuit states. Just a month before the pandemic struck, the owner of the facility devised a plan to cut $1.6 million from the budget by reducing staff — even though the Department of Health said all nursing homes needed to prepare for the coming pandemic.
During the first few months of the pandemic, from March to June of 2020 when nursing home staffing across the country was stretched beyond thin, 166 Cold Spring Hills residents died, 98 of which were from COVID. The facility failed to report 51 of those deaths to the state's DOH, the lawsuit stated, a fraudulent underreporting by more than 50 percent.
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Even before the pandemic, the suit alleges that the owner repeatedly cut staffing at the 588-bed facility, leading to poor working conditions and endangering the residents to potential harm. That staffing problem has continued through 2022, according to the attorney general's office.
There was also testimony from staff and family members of residents that described the bleak conditions at the center, which was said to be unclean and had critical care equipment like wheelchairs, beds, shower chairs and A/C units that were broken, the lawsuit stated. Some residents were said to be left sitting in soiled clothing, while others had wounds that got infected due to a lack of care.
Among the examples noted in the lawsuit, a diabetic man was given a wheelchair without footrests, forcing him to drag his feet on the floor — leading to sores. Part of his toe had to be amputated at the hospital as a result of the infections, and not long after he returned to the center, he died, the investigation found. The person looking after him was not told when the man died, or even was informed of his condition after going back to the facility.
Another patient who was there for five months after a stroke said she only received three showers in that time. A man who was badly injured in a car crash lost 30 pounds as a result of the care (or lack thereof) at the rehab center, according to the attorney general, and his condition worsened during his time there. He would later be admitted to the hospital for severe malnutrition, dehydration, a worsening pressure injury and a bone infection in his right foot.
That man reportedly told his wife, "They tried to kill me at Cold Spring Hills."
In a statement, James said that "Cold Spring Hill's owners put profits over patient care and left vulnerable New Yorkers to live in heartbreaking and inhumane conditions," and encouraged anyone who witnessed some of the alleged abuse and neglect to contact her office.
Cold Spring Hills declined to comment on the allegations put forth in the attorney general's lawsuit.
