Failure to Provide Required Written Transfer Notices and Bed-Hold Information
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to provide required written transfer notices, including information on appeal rights and ombudsman contact details, to residents and/or their responsible parties (RPs) when residents were transferred to the hospital. Additionally, the facility did not send copies of these notices to the Long Term Care Ombudsman for any of the five residents reviewed for hospitalizations. The facility's policy required that residents and their RPs be informed of transfer reasons, appeal rights, and bed-hold policies, but documentation showed these steps were not followed. Record reviews for multiple residents revealed that while verbal notifications were made to RPs regarding hospital transfers, there was no evidence of written notifications being provided. Bed hold notices, when present, were undated, unsigned, and did not specify the daily bed hold rate for private or semi-private rooms. In several cases, there was no documentation that the resident or RP received any written notice regarding the transfer or the facility's bed-hold policy at the time of transfer. Progress notes and other EMR documentation confirmed the absence of these required notifications. Interviews with facility staff, including the Administrator and Social Services Director, confirmed that written notifications were not consistently provided to RPs or sent to the Ombudsman. The Administrator acknowledged that while residents were sent with bed hold notices, RPs were not provided with this information, and the Social Services Director was unaware of the requirement to notify the Ombudsman for all hospital transfers. These actions and omissions resulted in a failure to comply with regulatory requirements for resident transfer notifications.