Nursing Home Patient Care

Your recent series on Beverly Enterprises by John Hurst and Claire Spiegel (Part I, April 7, 8) presents an inaccurate and misleading picture of our company. As a result, The Times has done a grave disservice not only to its readers, but to our employees, patients, their families and the communities we serve.

The articles strongly imply that we condone less than quality care in our facilities. That is completely false. We expect our facilities to provide the best possible care. Further, in addition to surveys by government agencies, our facilities are surveyed quarterly by our own health care professionals. This quality assurance effort is proving successful.

Data released April 11 by the state of California shows that for the three-month period to January, 1988, 23 of Beverly’s facilities had an average compliance score 27% better than the average for the 225 facilities inspected.

It is regrettable that The Times was not informed by the state Health Department auditor that we had challenged a determination that $7 million inappropriately went for “home office costs.” It is our contention that such activities as issuing new stock have been used directly for patient care and capital improvements for our facilities.

The articles distort a sale and lease-back agreement of three facilities. The transaction was treated by California as a “related party transaction.” The article implies that Beverly somehow kept public Medi-Cal “patient-care revenue” it should not have received. That is not true. Our final, audited Medi-Cal statements show that the three facilities did not receive additional state Medi-Cal funds because of the sale.

We discussed openly and in detail with The Times the company’s past problems and present challenges. More importantly, we showed how we have moved aggressively to implement major new programs that are directly contributing to improved patient care. These programs include a quality assurance program under which every facility is visited and surveyed quarterly by Beverly health care professionals; a new national training center where we will train 10,000 supervisory personnel in our facilities at a cost of approximately $12 million by 1990; and a plan to spend more than $30 million by 1990 to train nurse assistants.

The preceding factors and programs, along with Beverly’s commitment to patient care, brings up our question of the intent of the articles. The purpose of an “expose” is to factually inform and serve as a stimulus for corrective action. But a responsible investigation must also be founded on facts, especially when calling for new laws to reform a program as significant as Medi-Cal.

Throughout the article there is an implied call for punitive action, and a disturbing argument for reasons of expediency to deny providers administrative and judicial “due process.” It is implied that health-care providers somehow have too many rights, including the right to appeal an administrative agency’s decision.

As The Times well knows, unchecked, this argument of expediency can lead to abuses that are more serious than journalistic errors. For example, The Times was informed that state and federal privacy laws prohibit pictures of patients to be used without obtaining the consent of the patients or their legal representatives. Yet The Times proceeded to do that, while implying that it is Beverly that is insensitive to patient care, patient rights, and the law of the land.

No one denies the need for a change in the state’s Medi-Cal regulatory system. To promote such a change, however, it was not necessary for The Times to denigrate Beverly or stereotype nursing homes in general.

ROBERT VAN TUYLE

Chairman and CEO

Beverly Enterprises

Pasadena