Troubled Mount Laurel nursing home closing next month
The closure of Mount Laurel Center, which has operations in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, will put 323 out of work. Patients are to be transferred to other facilities by July 16.
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Mount Laurel Center for Rehabilitation & Healthcare, a South Jersey nursing home that has been on a list of the nation's most troubled facilities for 19 months without showing improvement, said it has lost its Medicare and Medicaid certifications and will close next month.
"Effective with the close of business on June 16, 2017, Mt. Laurel Center will no longer be a part of the Centers Health Care family," a spokesman said Thursday. Centers Health Care, which is based in Bronx, N.Y., is also the parent company of nursing homes in Deptford and Hammonton.
Patient transfers are expected to be completed by July 16, when Medicare and Medicaid payments will stop for patients admitted before Friday. No federal payments will be made for patients admitted after Friday.
The New Jersey Department of Health has been at the site frequently to monitor care, a spokeswoman said.
The closure will put 323 people out of work, according to a filing to the New Jersey Department of Labor. "The Centers facilities in Hammonton and Deptford are fully staffed and do not anticipate needing to offer positions to former Mt. Laurel staffers," the company said.
However, a recent Inquirer analysis of nursing staffing levels at Philadelphia-area nursing homes found that Deptford Center had had the sixth-lowest level of staffing relative to the hours per day expected by federal regulators. The analysis, which covered 203 facilities in the 80-county area that had the same owners for at least three years, did not include Hammonton, which is outside that area.