Nursing Home Linked to 37 Coronavirus Deaths Faces Fine of $600,000

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a letter Wednesday to the company, Life Care Center of Kirkland, that it may be terminated from Medicare and Medicaid participation if the facility is unable to come into compliance with federal regulations by September. Officials levied a fine of $13,585 per day covering a span of six weeks.

Federal officials reported last month that Life Care had failed to notify state officials about the increasing rate of respiratory infections among residents, failed to rapidly identify and manage ill residents and failed to have a backup plan after the facility’s primary clinician fell ill. CMS said that those urgent issues have since been resolved, but that Life Care will also need to demonstrate compliance on other issues, including record-keeping and its handling of safety and quality strategies.

“If LCC of Kirkland does not correct all deficiencies and return to full compliance by Sept. 16, 2020, then CMS will terminate your facility from participating in the Medicare/Medicaid program,” wrote Patrick Thrift, a CMS enforcement official in Seattle.

A spokesman for Life Care did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Life Care emerged a month ago as an early epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Two-thirds of the facility's residents and dozens of staff members have tested positive for coronavirus. Officials have identified 37 people linked to the facility who have died.

Life Care has said that as the crisis unfolded, managers initially had no reason to think that an outbreak of respiratory illness, common in nursing homes, was linked to the new coronavirus. That changed after testing at the end of February found that the virus was spreading in the Seattle area and in the nursing home.

Even then, Life Care has said, administrators and medical staff were left largely on their own, with little help from government officials.

The facility earned five stars out of five on its federal ratings for overall care last year. However, as part of the same rating system, the government also gave the home only three stars in the category of “health inspections,” which include recent routine inspections and those prompted by complaints.

The facility had 18 citations for health inspection issues, compared with an average of 20.4 for Washington state and to the nationwide average of eight. Its high overall rating despite that could reflect the poor standards of nursing homes in general, a number of nursing home experts said.

People who are older or with underlying conditions are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus. Since the Life Care outbreak began, state and federal oversight officials around the country have limited visitors and ramped up reviews at nursing homes to shield sites from infection.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .