Lakeland Village fails review

Lakeland Village, the state Department of Social and Health Services residential facility for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities in Medical Lake, was put on notice on Sept. 13 after an inspection by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found the facility failed to meet several standards of care.

“Surveyors came down and saw some things they didn’t like and put us in a denial of payment status,” DSHS spokeswoman Lisa Copeland said. “That means we cannot take on any new residents and get a federal match. It does not affect any of the existing residents.”

There are currently no new patients on Lakeland’s wait-list, she said.

The facility is federally regulated, with the federal government paying half the cost of residential care at the facility.

Copeland was unable to provide a dollar figure for the potential funding loss.

Federal inspectors found the facility, which includes both an intermediate care facility and a nursing facility, failed to meet several requirements.

One, called “continuous and aggressive skills training,” is intended to encourage some residents to go out into the community for “active treatment,” where they find work or learn a skill.

“If surveyors see someone has been sitting there for too long and they don’t see them getting active treatment, then they ding us for it,” Copland explained.

Active skills training is defined as an “aggressive, consistent” program of training with the goal of allowing residents to “function with as much self-determination and independence as possible,” according to a summary of the Medicare and Medicaid deficiency report provided by Chris Wright, media relations manager for DSHS, who said last week that the 100-page report of the Medicare and Medicaid investigation was “not ready to be released yet.”

According to Wright’s summary, the report found that Lakeland failed to meet the goals of active treatment by not:

• Encouraging clients to act independently and make their own choices.

• Provide proper supervision at meals “for one client to reduce the risk of choking.”

• Train residents to use an iPad to communicate.

• Train them to prepare their own meals.

• Teach residents about money management.

Other deficiencies included a failure to inform a resident’s guardian of medical procedure risks, fully investigate the source of bruising on at least one client and not keeping accurate medical records.

Another finding was a failure to implement client health care based on community medical provider recommendations. Copland described it as an administrative oversight, wherein a patient’s file did not reflect a required return visit to an off-campus physician.

“That follow-up was not in a person’s file,” she said.

Copland called the failure to keep accurate medical records a standard finding if other areas are out of compliance.

Lakeland is currently in the process of developing a plan of correction, which must be submitted within 10 days of the initial findings.

“I feel confident that we can come back into compliance,” Copeland said.

Surveyors will re-inspect the facility after receiving the DSHS plan of correction.

Lakeland recently accepted the transfer of 20 new residents from a similar program at the Rainier School, a DSHS facility in Buckley, Wash., after one of its three units was decertified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year after it failed a re-inspection.

“It’s the same process,” Copeland said. “If they come back and they didn’t feel we adequately made corrections then we could be in jeopardy of decertification.”

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].