Brius owner Shlomo Rechnitz is facing fresh criticism in Humboldt County.

On November 15, 2016, California State Sen. Mike McGuire issued a press release sharply criticizing Brius’ affiliate, Rockport Healthcare Services, after learning that it had rescinded its unilateral decision to terminate its contract with Humboldt County’s Medicaid administrator, Partnership HealthPlan. In the press release, the Senator accuses Rockport of “playing games with people’s lives for months,” and “acting like a school yard bully” with its threat to shutter three Humboldt nursing homes.

Observers believe Rockport’s “confusing” turnabout is the latest failed attempt to extract higher reimbursement rates from Partnership and boost the company’s profits. Rockport’s contract termination threat would have forced hundreds of nursing home residents to negotiate individual contracts with the Medicaid system in order to remain in Brius’ nursing homes.

According to the North Coast Journal, a contract termination might also have delayed future Medicaid patients’ access to nursing home care because patients would have been forced to negotiate their admission on a case-by-case basis.

Rockport’s rescinded letters are part of a series of reversals for Rechnitz. On November 9, Shlomo Rechnitz changed course on an earlier threat to evict hundreds of medically fragile residents from multiple Humboldt County nursing homes, shutter 60% of the county’s nursing home beds, and transfer the displaced residents hundreds of miles from their family and friends.

The closure threat, first announced in August, caused great distress for hundreds of frail residents and their families. Brius delivered legal letters to more than 100 residents announcing its intention to close their nursing homes. Then, on November 8, Brius informed [LINK] state officials it was rescinding its plan to close Eureka and Seaview rehabilitation and wellness centers.

Last week, dozens of people rallied outside Partnership HealthPlan’s Eureka office to counter a Brius-organized rally that sought to shift the blame from its own controversial decision to voluntarily close three nursing homes.

As reported by a half-dozen Humboldt news outlets, the diverse group of counter-protesters included family members of residents living in the nursing homes slated for closure, and community members upset over Brius’ plans.

An 85-year-old woman told the North Coast Journal about her son, a U.S. veteran who lives at one of the affected nursing homes. He has suffered from complications of diabetes and recently had his toes amputated. In a wheelchair for several months following surgery, he’s only recently started walking again. His mother fears he will be evicted from his nursing home to some far-away city. Tears welling in her eyes she told the Journal, “I don’t want him to have to go to Redding or far away. He wants to be near his mother.”

Chip Sharpe, one of the anti-Brius protestors, worries about his friend living in Brius’ Fortuna Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. While not one of the nursing homes Brius is threatening with closure, Chris’ friend has nonetheless been shaken by the news. “The residents are frightened and unsure what will happen,” he explained to the Journal.

California Senator Mike McGuire has been critical of Brius’ attempt to evade responsibility for the closures. In a recent press release, McGuire said, “This so-called protest would be amusing if it wasn’t so sad that Rockport Management was trying to take advantage of families and patients at this difficult time…There are real issues here – real people being impacted by the threat of these closures and I hope this billion-dollar corporation stops the grandstanding and they start working with us to help the people of Humboldt.” Chris Sharpe echoed this sentiment, telling the Journal he feels like “the residents are being used as pawns.

For more coverage of last week’s protest click on the links below.

• Eureka Times-Standard. “Protests split on how to prevent Eureka nursing home closures.”
• Lost Coat Outpost. “Competing protests with a shared goal: Keeping Eureka’s skilled nursing facilities from closing.”
• KMUD. “Protestors call on Rockport to halt closure of nursing facilities, Rockport blames state contractor.”
• NBC 3 News. “Protesters urging Partnership to keep three skilled nursing facilities open.”
• ABC 7 News. “2 Eureka street protests follow Rockport Management’s scheduled nursing home closures.”
• North Coast Journal. “Clash over care: Protesters face off over skilled nursing closures.”

A front-page investigative article in a Humboldt County newspaper offers a jaw-dropping examination of substandard care at Brius nursing homes. The article, entitled “The Case of the Missing $5 Million,” relies on state inspection records and interviews with multiple residents, family members, caregivers, and former caregivers.

Former caregivers describe how Brius officials reportedly falsify staffing levels at the nursing homes in order to conceal violations from state investigators. Substandard staffing levels at the nursing homes have contributed to falls, weight loss, infections, and even broken bones among residents, say current and former staff members.

The article also sheds light on Brius’ practice of siphoning millions of dollars from its nursing homes via a web of subsidiary corporations.

Reporter Linda Stansberry reviewed financial reports to examine the company’s public rationale for closing three nursing homes and evicting nearly 190 elderly residents.

Although Brius and its owner, Shlomo Rechnitz, claim to be experiencing financial losses at five nursing homes, Stansberry discovers that Brius is siphoning millions of dollars a year from the facilities. Furthermore, Brius has actually documented these financial transactions in obscure financial disclosures to a state agency, says Stansberry.

Here’s an excerpt from Stansberry’s article in the North Coast Journal:

“The [financial] disclosures include a section dubbed “related party transactions,” which describes financial interactions between parent companies and subsidiaries. Think of it as a kind of conflict of interest statement. In 2015, Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center paid $42,000 to Boardwalk Financial Services, LLC for “administrative services.” The company employs Rechnitz as a consultant. It also paid $864,894 to lease the property. Who owns the property? Rechnitz. Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center also paid $110,204 for medical supplies to TwinMed Medical Supplies and Services, owned by Shlomo Rechnitz and his twin brother, Steve. And it paid $47,663 to SR Capital, LLC, which lists Rechnitz as its managing member. Altogether, in the 2014-2015 fiscal year, as Rockport/Brius was playing a financial game of chicken with Partnership Healthcare and refusing to take in vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities, it managed to shunt more than $4.6 million back into companies affiliated with Shlomo Rechnitz.”

“While, on paper, the company may have lost money, Rechnitz still managed to profit. The amount he took in for lease payments alone in 2015 on the five properties — more than $3.5 million — was easily enough to cancel out Brius’ “unsustainable” combined loss of almost $1.5 million from the company’s Humboldt County holdings that year.”

Here’s a link to the full story in the North Coast Journal.

Two more public officials have joined the growing chorus of criticism aimed at Brius due to its threatened closure of three Humboldt County nursing homes and planned eviction of nearly 190 elderly and frail residents. Last week, Patty Berg and Wesley Chesbro published a joint op-ed in the North Coast Journal blasting Brius and its owner, Shlomo Rechnitz.

Berg represented the North Coast region in the California Assembly from 2002 through 2008, where she chaired the Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care. She’s also the founding director of the Area 1 Agency on Aging. Chesbro represented the North Coast in both the California Senate and Assembly from 1998 through 2012. He’s a former California State Senator, Humboldt County supervisor, and Arcata city councilmember.

Berg and Chesbro begin their op-ed this way: “As your former legislative representatives in Sacramento, we want the community to know how appalled we are by the pending closures of three skilled nursing facilities in Humboldt County.”

They continue: “The closures would reduce the number of beds by 258, or 60 percent. But most devastating, it would have the catastrophic effect of moving hundreds of elderly, poor and vulnerable individuals out of the county to other facilities at this time unknown.”

They write: “This is simply intolerable. We have been working to try to put a temporary halt to something we believe would have drastic and traumatic consequences for these individuals and their families…”

Chesbro and Berg describe how Partnership Health Plan, the nonprofit public healthcare organization that administers Medi-Cal benefits in 14 Northern California counties including Humboldt, approached Brius about taking over the three facilities. Shlomo Rechnitz has said he’s willing to give away the three nursing homes for free. Despite his public offer, Rechnitz told Partnership “it would have to purchase all five facilities or none in order to avoid competition. Rechnitz’s asking price was $32.6 million,” write Berg and Chesbro. That was a deal-killer.

Berg and Chesbro direct special criticism at Brius CEO Shlomo Rechnitz for creating an “inexcusable,” “unnecessary,” “simply intolerable,” and “dire situation.”

Writing about the crisis now affecting hundreds of nursing home residents and their families, Chesbro and Berg state: “Specifically, though, it is due to Mr. Shlomo Rechnitz, owner of Brius Healthcare Service, who cries of his loss of Medi-Cal income during this last year because of staffing shortages. Yet, reports say he personally takes in $3 billion in income per year. Go figure.”

Here’s additional media coverage of the October 13, 2016 protest against Brius’ threatened closure of three nursing homes in Humboldt County.

KMUD Radio News, based in Redway, Calif., aired the following 7-minute story in its daily news broadcast. The coverage, which begins with the sounds of protesters chanting in the background, includes interviews with family members of the nursing home residents who will be transferred hundreds of miles away if Brius follows through with its threatened closures.

Jeff Graham tells KMUD he makes a weekly 67-mile drive to visit his mother who is partially paralyzed and lives at Brius’ Pacific Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. “If they send her out of county, I will not be able to see her and she will just die,” he tells KMUD. (3:55 min.)

Kellie Shaner, a caregiver at St. Joseph Hospital Eureka, tells KMUD her family struggled to bring her mother from a nursing home in Crescent City to one in Eureka in order to be closer to her. For the past several months, Kellie’s mother has been living at Brius’ Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, where she receives regular visits from her parents, children, and grandchildren. All this may change, says Shaner, if Brius follows through with its threatened eviction of her mom and nearly 200 other elderly residents. “The thought of [my mother] being shipped out of town again is terrifying,” says Shaner. “We fought really hard to get her back down here locally, and now they are telling us they are going to ship her out to who knows where, somewhere farther than Crescent City.” (1:19 min.)

Others interviewed in the news story say Brius’ threatened action would have “catastrophic” and “terrifying” consequences for the community. One community member tells KMUD that Brius owner Shlomo Rechnitz’s threatened closures and mass eviction of fragile nursing home residents is “starting to feel like extortion.” (5:05 min.)

Here’s a three-minute report from the October 13, 2016 protest at Pacific Rehabilitation & Wellness Center in the Eureka, Calif. courtesy of Independent Media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM91zYbbz5I&feature=youtu.be

Describing Brius’ threatened closures as a “crisis situation,” Independent Media lays out what these planned closures will mean for local residents, and interviews a caregiver from Humboldt County’s largest hospital whose family members have received care at the nursing homes. In the background, viewers can hear chanting protesters and passers-by who are honking their car horns in support of the protest.