Centers Health Care took over the former Essex County-owned Horace Nye Nursing Home in Elizabethtown in 2012. (Provided photo — Alvin Reiner, Press-Republican)

ELIZABETHTOWN — Essex Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare’s one-star Medicare rating is based on old information, a representative from the facility’s ownership says.

As the number of COVID-19 cases associated with the Elizabethtown nursing home continued to climb last week, Centers Health Care Adirondack Regional Director Grace Pfordresher was asked during a virtual press conference Thursday to address whether the ranking combined with the outbreak indicated overall care needs to be improved.

Centers Health Care took over the facility, formerly the Essex County-owned Horace Nye Nursing Home, in 2012.

A total of 88 COVID-19 cases have been linked to the cluster at Essex Center.

That breaks down to 46 residents — seven of whom have died — 30 staff members and 12 contacts of staff.

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Quality measure

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Pfordresher said the rating system is complex and that a lot of information goes into it. She also contended that the system has been lagging behind for some time and that Medicare has not opened up new surveys.

“It’s old information, number one,” she said. “Number two, the quality measure portion of it — which is the one that’s the most important to us because that shows the quality of care for our patients — that is changing and improving, it has been since we took over.”

Essex Center currently has a three-star quality measures rating, according to medicare.gov.

“This past survey cycle, our annual survey was the most extraordinary survey we’ve ever had at Essex Center in a very long time, even way prior to us owning it,” Pfordresher said.

“We did not even have one clinical citation, meaning the DOH came in and had no issues or clinical findings for their entire survey.”

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Plan accepted

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She was referring to a March 6, 2020, survey, which noted nine total deficiencies.

According to the state Department of Health website, those had yet to be corrected.

But Pfordresher told The Press-Republican following the press conference that Essex Center’s plan of correction was accepted by the state Department of Health within the 60-day compliance date.

“I think there is a lag time right now because of COVID with them putting them into the system.”

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Surveys suspended

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The Press-Republican asked DOH to confirm whether Essex Center had submitted plans of correction on time and whether DOH was experiencing a delay in logging the corrections.

“While all recertification surveys, including Essex Center’s, were suspended due to a federal mandate issued earlier in the pandemic, DOH will be resuming these surveys soon,” spokesperson Jeffrey Hammond said.

On March 4, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required state agencies to only conduct Focused Infection Control and Immediate Jeopardy surveys, and to stop all normal survey activities, the DOH said.

Per CMS recommendations issued June 1, DOH is now also conducting surveys of complaints.

“Following the CMS mandate, ensuring that nursing homes are adhering to strong infection control measures has been a clear priority for DOH, with more than 1,300 on-site visits to nursing homes and adult care facilities to ensure infection control practices are in place,” DOH said.