New Jersey health regulators have assessed a $45,000 penalty against Morris View Healthcare Center after finding repeated failures to meet the state’s nursing-home staffing ratios, an October 21 notice shows.
The assessment raises the penalty rate to $3,000 for each day of noncompliance found in a September 17 survey. The Department of Health said the facility failed to meet the requirements on 15 of 21 day shifts reviewed, producing the $45,000 total.
The notice is an assessment with dispute and hearing rights, not a court ruling or evidence that the penalty has been paid. A separate $45,000 assessment issued October 7 is already being appealed at the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law, according to the new notice.
The department classified the September findings as F-level deficiencies: widespread violations resulting in no actual harm, but with potential for more than minimal harm that is not immediate jeopardy. That classification should not be confused with a finding of actual resident injury or immediate jeopardy.
The action shows how penalties can rise when New Jersey nursing homes receive repeated citations for the same or substantially similar F-level or higher deficiency within three years. The department cited state law requiring a more severe penalty than the one imposed for the previous violation.
For Morris View, the notice traces the daily penalty from $1,000 in an earlier assessment to $1,500, $2,000 and $2,500 in subsequent actions, before the latest increase to $3,000. Those figures describe the department’s enforcement sequence; the October 7 assessment remains contested.
The underlying state staffing law requires one certified nurse aide for every eight residents on the day shift. For the evening shift, it requires one direct-care worker for every 10 residents, with at least half of those workers being certified nurse aides and staff assigned to perform aide duties. The night-shift requirement is one direct-care worker for every 14 residents, with workers assigned to perform those duties, as described in the notice.
The notice allows the facility to challenge factual survey findings through informal dispute resolution and to request a formal administrative hearing on the findings or penalty. It states that failure to request a hearing within 30 days of the notice would make the assessment a final agency decision. The published notice does not establish whether the facility has requested a hearing on this latest assessment.
New Jersey lists the October 21 action on its health-facility enforcement page as a notice of assessment of penalties.
JBizNews Desk | New Jersey
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