Consumer Investigation: Some of Charlotte nursing home’s land in foreclosure
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Visitors may immediately sense there’s a problem when approaching the main entrance of Waterview Heights Nursing Home. It’s blocked with large mounds of snow. That’s because the company that owns Waterview Heights, The Grand Healthcare System, no longer owns the grassy plot of land which serves as the entry to the property, nor its own parking lot. Those plots were sold last month at a foreclosure auction because The Grand failed to pay the taxes.
While public records indicate the company does pay taxes on the building, residents say the nursing home, built in 1930, is certainly showing its age. And resident Johnnie Levert says the problems are constant.
“They got a water fountain and ice machine thing that’s full of mold and mildew,” Levert said. And staff tell Deanna Dewberry that the elevators work only sporadically. And then there’s the HVAC system.
Deanna Dewberry, News10NBC: “When you called me on Saturday it was 21 degrees outside, and you didn’t have heat. What was it like in your room?”
Johnnie Levert: “Oh it was freezing in here. I slept with an entire sweatsuit on, sweatpants, hooded sweatshirt, all that.”
Levert says he was sent to Waterview Heights for rehabilitation following his knee replacement surgery. News10NBC’s Deanna Dewberry interviewed him by phone because Waterview administrators refuse to let her in, despite the fact New York’s Department of Health mandates that residents be given the right to “receive visitors of their choosing at the time of their choosing.”
Dewberry has tried to visit Levert twice. The second time was during that weekend he told her he had no heat. When Dewberry arrived, a receptionist told her they weren’t allowed to let her in. They called an administrator while Dewberry waited for them to arrive. Moments later, Dewberry was asked to leave and was told The Grand’s attorneys would be in touch.
Their attorneys didn’t call Dewberry. The Grand’s executives didn’t call her either despite her repeated questions by email and text. She wanted to know whether the company is having financial problems. After all, last year the Department of Justice ordered The Grand to pay a fine of $21.3 million for billing Medicare for services never rendered.
According to the DOJ, the fraudulent billing occurred at 12 nursing homes from 2014 to 2019, before the company bought Waterview Heights in 2022. As for Levert, he’s even more motivated to walk again so he can walk out of the facility. “I want to give myself another week and a half – week and a half tops. And I know I’ll be ready,” Levert said.
Before you put a loved one in a nursing home, it’s important to do your research. Click here for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s ratings for nursing homes. Click here for the New York State Department of Health’s inspection reports of each nursing home.
*A.I. assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses A.I.*
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