Lawsuit aims to see patient readmitted

The man owed the nursing home about $75,000, a hearing officer ruled.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The Ohio Department of Aging has filed a lawsuit seeking to force Horizon Village Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on North Road to readmit a former resident who left because of a medical emergency.
The action filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court is the latest legal maneuver in a battle that has included a hearing before the Ohio Department of Health at which the company was ordered to readmit the former resident. Horizon Village is appealing that decision, saying the department of health doesn't have the jurisdiction to order the man readmitted.
In its filing Monday, the state's Long Term Care Ombudsperson Program in Columbus has asked for the company to readmit Anthony Dorsey based on its claim and that of a state hearing examiner that Horizon Village improperly discharged him on Oct. 21, 2004, after he had been taken to Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital for treatment.
The lawyer for Horizon Village, J. Brenda Coey from Canton, said she would not comment on the latest lawsuit until she had seen it.
The case is assigned to Judge W. Wyatt McKay; a hearing is also scheduled on Thursday on the company's appeal.
What lawsuit says
The suit filed Monday says Dorsey, in his mid-40s and from Warren, was admitted to the facility on about Oct. 1, 2004, and went to the hospital Oct. 21, 2004, with a high fever.
On Oct. 25, when Dorsey was ready to be released from the hospital, the facility refused to readmit him, saying Dorsey had not placed a deposit with the company to secure his bed, the lawsuit said.
TMH kept Dorsey for a little more than two weeks, and he was later taken to another nursing home, an official said.
Released without notice
"Although the facility had an available bed for Mr. Dorsey ... his readmission was refused on the basis of his outstanding balance in the approximate sum of $75,000," the state hearing officer found. "This refusal is based upon the facility's unwritten corporate policy or practice of refusing readmission to residents who have an outstanding balance due."
The state hearing officer ruled that the discharge was invalid because Horizon did not follow statutory provisions which require a written notice of the discharge be sent to the resident. The hearing officer ordered that Horizon readmit Dorsey.
In Horizon Village's Nov. 10 appeal of the state ruling, the company charged that the Ohio Department of Health lacked jurisdiction to conduct its hearing Nov. 3, and that the hearing officer misinterpreted Horizon Village's policies and misinterpreted Ohio law.
The company contends it is under no obligation to issue a 30-day notice of involuntary discharge, or to readmit Dorsey.
John Saulitis, local director of the Long Term Ombudsman Program for the District XI Agency on Aging in Youngstown, who is helping Dorsey, said the injunction was filed "on the principal that nursing homes have to follow the law when releasing patients from their facility."
Saulitis represents clients in Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties.
runyan@vindy.com