ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Waterview Heights, the rehabilitation and nursing center in Rochester that’s been the subject of multiple News10NBC investigations, is scheduled to close on Tuesday.

The facility was supposed to close last Thursday, but not all residents had found new homes. The State Department of Health requires the facility to stay open until every resident has another living option, but as News10NBC has reported, some Waterview residents have no place to go. As of Friday, about 20 residents still haven’t moved into a new nursing home, and nine more are being treated at local hospitals. Here’s the latest:

Expert’s warning about Medicaid reimbursement rate

Finding a nursing home in the Rochester area is no easy task, Mike Kearney, an elder care consultant who owns Senior Care Authority of Rochester, said.

Nursing home administrators consider two primary factors when deciding whether to take a resident: How hard the person is to take care of and who is going to pay for their care.

The first factor includes their illness, mobility, and medications. For the second factor, Waterview residents are often on Medicaid. Three out of four nursing home residents are on Medicaid, but there is a problem with that.

“Medicaid in New York State will only pay that nursing home three-fourths of what it costs the nursing home operator to take care of that person,” Kearney said.

News10NBC’s Deanna Dewberry: “And as a business model that’s unsustainable.”

Kearney: “Absolutely unsustainable. So if I see someone in that nursing home that is on Medicaid, and I hold up my hand and say I’ll take that person, I’m volunteering to lose 100 dollars a day or more on that person.”

Increasing the Medicaid reimbursement rate to nursing homes will require action by the legislature and a signature from the governor. In the meantime, groups say they will not be silenced until change happens.

New nursing home search

Samuel Imburgia is one of more than two dozen Waterview Heights residents still searching for another nursing home as of last week. Imburgia requires round-the-clock care and has been married to his wife for more than five decades. News10NBC spoke with Imburgia’s wife about her search for another nursing home that’s not an hour or more away. See that story here.

Rally demanding changes to nursing home oversight

Advocacy groups gathered at Washington Square Park in Rochester on Sunday to demand improvements in nursing home care during the inaugural Long-Term Care Reform Day.

ROAR 4 Long-Term Care (ROAR 4 LTC) and the Elder Justice Committee of Metro Justice were among the groups calling for change, pointing to the crisis at Waterview Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing as evidence of the need for reform. News10NBC’s Declan Stablow was at the rally. This rally and others across the country have been in the works for about ten months.

Organizers said when Waterview Heights developed into a crisis earlier this year, it became a primary focus. Advocates said the Department of Health did not do enough to monitor that situation.

They called for increased oversight at both the state and federal level, as well as meaningful enforcement. An important symbol at the event was the Empty Chair Experience, a wheelchair featuring the photos and stories of people who suffered or died in nursing homes.

Dorothy Avery with ROAR said events like this are important because elder care is not discussed enough. It saddens her knowing some residents at Waterview Heights are being moved out of Rochester due to a lack of beds.

“I also don’t understand why there wasn’t a plan. Because everyone knew that Waterview Heights was awful. Yeah, everyone knows that. And so it couldn’t have been a surprise that this was coming. So why wasn’t there a plan? Why are people being transparent about that?” Avery said.

The rally in Rochester was one of 29 held nationwide. Organizers said long-term care residents are not invisible or alone, and that reform cannot wait. News10NBC asked Assemblyman Josh Jensen to weigh in.

“I think also some of the problem was that we allowed the federal government to dictate its closure. And that accelerated the timeline, but it had to be a plan that was not only led by DOJ, but was a community-based plan to work with providers and other facilities to make sure that we could safely discharge people and not have an incident where people were being thrown out of the nursing home because they overstayed their pass,” Jensen said.

What the Department of Health says

The state Department of Health approved Waterview’s plan to move residents to homes within a 25-mile radius. A DOH spokesman said resident safety is a priority, and the DOH monitors remain onsite to ensure the closure process goes as smoothly as possible. However, advocates at the rally said multiple parties should have been involved to coordinate the closure plan.

Watch News10NBC’s investigative stories

Here are some of the stories that News10NBC’s Deanna Dewberry has done about Waterview Heights and oversight for local nursing homes:

• Consumer Investigation: Waterview resident said he’s kicked out without notice, left homeless
• News10NBC Investigates: Waterview’s plan to find beds for more than 160 residents
• News10NBC Investigates: Going inside nursing homes to see whether they’re following transparency laws
• Investigates: Exclusive video inside Waterview Heights sheds light on resident’s fall from window
• Consumer Investigation: 5 of the worst-rated nursing homes in Monroe County overdue for state inspections
• Sources say patient who fell from window and died at Waterview was living in psychiatric wing
• Consumer Investigation: Waterview Heights closure forces more than 160 residents to find new care placements
• Consumer Investigation: Inspection raises questions about deaths of 4 residents
• News10NBC Investigation: Allegations of neglect at Waterview Heights Nursing Home

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