State, Nursing Homes in Covid Dispute

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Pennsylvania Health Department officals say 100 nursing homes have failed to report full data on Covid-19 cases while 56 more have submitted inaccurate data, but nursing home owners say it is the state that has the wrong numbers.
In what has been a growing dispute the state recently began adding to a weekly Covid-19 report the number of facilties that it contends have been submitting inaccurate data. The most recent report states that 7.94 percent of 693 facility operators submitted inaccurate data, while 14.43 percent failed to submit the required data.
Officials of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, which represents nursing home operators, disagree.
"Providers have seen countless inaccuracies, discrepancies and errors in the numbers that are publicly reported by the Department, said Zach Shamberg, head of the association. Rather than "point fingers" Shamberg said, the association has been urging the state to work with nursing home operators to iron out differences.
But Maggi Barton, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said the discrepancies even included some nursing homes "inputting the number of deaths as their number of cases."
"We continue to strive to get more facilities to report, and report accurately," Barton added, disputing the claim that the state has not tried to work with actual operators.
She said when the data reported by a nursing home is "clearly inadequate we will mark as 'no data' to ensure we can reflect the most accurate picture of COVID-19 impact in these facilities."
Officials of the nursing home association say that when they've told the state their numbers were wrong the state made no corrections.
Some nursing home operators say that the problem may stem at least in part from the fact that the nursing homes have to report their data into two different reporting systems, which have differing definitions of reporting requirements.
They also contend that some of the nursing homes listed by the state as deficient, may have closed or changed ownership.
One thing both sides do seem to agree on is the public's need for accurate data. With the right data, Barton said, the state can "efficiently inform the public of the impact of COVID-19 on each facility."
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