State health-care investigators on Friday recommended fining a nursing home $360,000 for telling 52 Medicaid patients they would have to leave for a renovation project with no promise they would be allowed to return.
The Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center of Tampa, run by nursing-home giant Vencor, had just recently been renovated.
Company officials at first said it was a coincidence that all the patients were on Medicaid, but they apologized Thursday and said they would stop discharging them.
Still, the state Agency for Health Care Administration said Friday that the nursing home had discriminated against Medicaid patients and put their care in jeopardy.
“To deny good health-care service on the basis of payer source is simply wrong,” said agency director Douglas Cook.
W. Bruce Lunsford, chief executive office for Vencor, based in Louisville, Ky., said the company underestimated the effect of its decision to “decertify” Medicaid beds, but insisted that patient care never was compromised.
Of the 52 patients who received discharge notices saying they had 30 days to leave, 10 had left the facility. All were invited back.
