Seal Beach Nursing Home Loses Medicare After Health Violations

Public health violations have prompted the California Department of Public Health to suspend Seal Beach’s only nursing home from accepting new patient’s on Medicare or Medical.

Since Jan. 28, has only been accepting patients with cash or private insurance. The change prompted many in the community to worry that the nursing home was going under.

However, that is not the case.

“The building is not closing,” said Country Villa President Michael Torgin.

It’s not an uncommon situation in the healthcare industry, said Torgin. The issue has been identified and corrected, and the facility will begin accepting Medicare patients again as soon as the state approves the correction, he added.

A spokesman for the California Department of Public Health said he could not release the details of a violation in an ongoing investigation.

During an inspection of the nursing home, health department officials found two serious violations. In a corrective action letter the Department of Health and Human Services wrote, “Indeed, the survey findings documented that that two of the cited deficiencies posed immediate jeopardy to residents’ health and safety on December 8, 2011 at 9:20 am. The immediate jeopardy was abated December 12, 2011 at 10:20 a.m.”

The company was fined $10,000 per day for the three days until the violations were corrected, according to the corrective letter.

Last year, the facility had one substantiated patient care violation pertaining to the notification of an accident or significant change. Since 2004, there have been nine documented patient care violations at the Seal Beach location pertaining to notifications, and preadmission screening. Country Villa is located adjacent to Leisure World.