Click on the words to go directly to Beverly's Response to allegations involving
Introduction
In order to bring out the pattern of Beverly's responses to the many allegations I have put an illustrative selection here. I do not claim that it is complete nor that it embraces all their responses. I have simply selected what I thought was representative.
Beverly's responses are perhaps more revealing of corporate thinking than that of any of the other companies. Perhaps these people are simply cynical crooks whose only concern is the vast bonuses they can get by pleasing their shareholders. Deliberate lying is their mode of operation. This may seem the obvious explanation of the totally conflicting points of view - the evil empire on the one hand, and the company's view of itself on the other. Beverly sees itself as a company conducting a legitimate and successful business in the best interests of its patients and shareholders, but beset by problems not of its own making.
Could it be that Beverly simply tailors its
responses to the situation it is addressing. They are supremely
confident and because that is their explanation it is automatically
correct. Senior staff simply do not look at the evidence or for that
matter contradictory statements made elsewhere. This process is known
as "compartmentalisation". I have placed an excellent article which
addresses Beverly's contradictory statements and its truthfulness on
another page.
Click
Here to read this article.
And yet the allegations are so extensive that there must be a bonfire somewhere. It is difficult to believe that all these people in all these companies would collude and lie like this - or that they would be so admired and respected by the establishment in and outside the USA. The Japanese have recently invited them to provide services in Japan. It simply doesn't make sense.
We have seen this blind belief before, in Germany, in South Africa, in Russia, and in the Balkans. Alternate explanations are needed for these situations.
I have suggested that these people genuinely believe what they are saying. They use a series of psychological strategies to deny, explain and justify their activities. It becomes a social phenomenon as groups close ranks and reaffirm their beliefs in the face of challenging evidence. This also is not a new phenomenon. We saw it in these countries and it is a feature of religious cults.
Beverly's responses are to deny, to excuse, to find a reason for not responding, to claim that the problems have or are being fixed, or that the data is out of date, biased or invalid. They often claim that they have not seen the critical reports or the data.
When confronted they deny the validity of the information and attack the motives and credibility of the messenger. The greater the threat (e.g. the unions) the more bitter the attack.
They attack the credibility of the surveillance processes, claiming they have been victimised. They go to their political mates asking them for protection.
Beverly uses the law to maximum benefit fighting a war of attrition and exercising its legal rights to the highest level of appeal. When it is forced to settle Beverly claims that it has only done so for expediency and not because it is at fault.
COMMENT:- Nurses are unionising to protect themselves from company's like Beverly. Beverly shifts the blame. The conflict between nurses and unions has been going on since the early 1980's - since corporatisation started - not since the 1997 funding system as they suggest.
Health Care Workers Turn to Union
The Associated Press January 31, 1998
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
Back at the Beverly Hospital, spokesman Jack Good insisted that the ratio of nurses to patients has remained constant. He called the unionization vote a backlash against the new health care environment. It is a backlash being felt all across the country.
COMMENT:- Beverly's illegal union busting practices resulted in a federal "cease and desist" order. Here is the response.
NURSING HOME FIRM FACES MORE PROBLEMS; THE
OWNER OF A WINTER PARK UNIT THAT MUST BE SOLD IS ALSO UNDER FEDERAL
SCRUTINY.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL October 29, 1998
In a separate dispute in August, the National Labor Relations Board cited 106 instances of anti-union activity by the company at 26 facilities in 15 states.Beverly called the findings "fundamentally flawed and obviously biased" and is appealing.
COMMENT:- The company is required to post notices setting out fair labour practices at all of its facilities and follow them.
BEAVER NURSES VOTE TO JOIN SEIU UNIT
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 24, 2000,
Beverly spokesman Dan Springer said the company would intervene to "make sure that it is not overly burdensome."Springer said the complaints in the case were old and do not reflect positive measures since undertaken by the company.
The order enforces over 100 unfair-labor-practice findings, consolidated into cases dubbed Beverly 2 and Beverly 3, the board said.
CLICK HERE for more about this.
COMMENT:- National figures reveal that nursing homes workplaces, and Beverly's nursing homes in particular are among the highest risk for injury in the USA.
More than 1,100 Pa. companies get safety
notices
The Associated Press State & Local Wire May 3,
1999
"That was two years ago," said Dan Springer, vice president of public relations for Beverly Enterprises. "Over the course of the last couple years, recognizing the strain that is inherent in our business ... we've taken action to mitigate workplace injury.""Roughly three-quarters of the injuries, and probably more that take place in a nursing home relative to workers' compensation, are back-related and that's due to the lifting of residents, primarily," he said. "We have invested $ 15 million in (mechanical) lifts that are designed to help in the heavy lifting associated with nursing home care."
The company also has spent $ 5 million on training in the proper techniques for lifting patients who are unable to get out of a bed or chair unassisted.
CLICK HERE for more information about these problems
COMMENT:- The unions carried out a study of Beverly's homes in Alabama. This is one of a seies of reports. (I have included information from the SEIU reports on care in Genesis' facilities elsewhere.) The SEIU issued a report and data alleging that profits were high and care poor in Beverly' homes in Alabama.
In the reply note the strategy of linking profitability to good care in Beverly's response. This is not a sensible comment in this context and suggests that they really mean this.
Financial success, rather than actual care has been the measure of "quality care" since the Tenet/NME fraud in the late 1980's. Experience and increasing data indicate that in market listed companies care and profit are inversely related. Beverly is not an exception.
Beverly profits up, care down, union says
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette July 13, 1999, Tuesday
A spokesman for Fort Smith-based Beverly said the company doesn't discuss state-by-state earnings and called the union report "in keeping with a common union tactic to distract the focus of [contract] negotiations." The union said it investigated Beverly in Alabama after a federal report suggested that 40 percent of American nursing homes harmed residents and after hundreds of Beverly workers called it.For its part, Beverly, which has long had rocky labor relations, linked the report to union contract negotiations in Alabama. "We are very close to contracts expiring," spokesman Dan Springer said, challenging the union's timing.
But Gene Bruskin, a Food and Allied Service Trades union official who helped the union prepare its report, said union contracts expire every year in Beverly homes somewhere. "They don't ever want to talk about patient care, they just change the subject," said Bruskin, a union official in Washington, D.C. "Ultimately, it's irrelevant whether our motive is bad or good, these are the facts."
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Springer said Beverly is profitable because it provides good care.
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Beverly, like other nursing-home companies, questions the reliability of state regulations as a barometer of patient care, since each state's inspections differ.
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Springer, who hadn't seen the union report Monday, declined comment on the specifics of the union's claims. "We don't make a practice of comparing our profits to those of our competitors," he said. However, he called such comparisons "spurious." As the nation's largest nursing-home chain, Beverly can save money where others can't, he said. At the same time, the company has less debt than other Alabama nursing homes, which contributes to profitability.
COMMENT:- Response to the nurses data showing poor care in Alhabama.
Union claims owner of nursing homes
sacrificing patient care for big profits
The Associated Press State & Local Wire July 14, 1999
"This is a typical negotiating ploy for them," Lee (Beverly spokesman) said Tuesday.
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Lee said the company is not skimping on patient care."We do not understaff," he said in a telephone interview. "We do provide care within the regulations and we do provide care as the state of Alabama requires."
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Lee declined to comment about the company's specific profits in Alabama."I'd have to say I don't know the source of his profit numbers," Lee said. "It is not our policy to discuss the individual homes' earnings."
Lee said the company's "profits are reasonable."
Click Here for more information about the data and the allegations made by the SEIU..
COMMENT:- This is a company which has cut staff and kept salaries low since the early 1980's boasting of effective cost containment. Companies were making vast profits. At this time there were according to the corporate chains an excess of staff. Now that Beverly is being attacked by everyone for poor care and understaffing this is the response.
The company's want the government to pay more money to cover salaries. A recent review in California shows that when the state government did this the money went into corporate pockets and not salaries.
Transitional care threatened by Medicare
cuts; Inland hospitals may face painful choices about what to do with
such facilities.
Be THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE (RIVERSIDE, CA.) July 18, 1999
Beverly Healthcare, which operates several nursing homes in the Inland area, including facilities in Riverside, Redlands and Rancho Mirage, is the second largest skilled nursing provider in the state and is still turning a profit.
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Still, "I would hesitate to characterize Beverly as doing really well," company Vice President Dan Springer said. "It is a difficult operating environment for anybody in this business. " For example, Beverly wants to be able to pay its care-givers a living wage, Springer said. Certified nursing assistants who bathe, dress, feed and help patients in the restroom earn on average $ 7 to $ 7.50 per hour, he said. The company wants to give them a $ 2-per-hour raise, but can't afford to.
COMMENT:- Beverly holds large contracts with Veterans Affairs and as such it is required to meet government equal opportunity and other employment standards. It is fairly obvious why Beverly would be selected for a review of its employment practices. Like others it is intensely resentful of any government restrictions and any intrusion into its business activities. The market is supposed to take care of itself!
Beverly Enterprises ordered to open
headquarters
The Associated Press State & Local Wire September 9, 1999,
Thursday, AM cycle
Beverly spokesman Dan Springer said Thursday that the Labor Department has not explained why Beverly was chosen for review over other government contractors."We don't believe that they followed the proper process and we have not been able to get answers about why they didn't and why we have been unfairly targeted," Springer said.
According to the Labor Department release, in the type of corporate management review proposed for Beverly, officials generally examine salary and promotion practices in executive positions.
Springer said there are no problems with Beverly's salary and promotion practices.
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Springer said that Beverly would ask a judge to intervene within the next few days.Click Here for more information about this.
NURSING FACILITY GETS ULTIMATUM; THE
WINTER PARK CENTER, WHICH WAS CITED FOR NEGLECT, MUST GET A NEW OWNER
OR CLOSE.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL October 27, 1998
"We're pretty surprised by the state of Florida's action, and we will appeal it," Beverly spokesman Dan Springer said."Substantive corrective actions have been under way since AHCA identified specific areas for improvement," he said. But regulators "pre-empted the time line" established for responding to its complaints.
NURSING HOME FIRM FACES MORE PROBLEMS; THE
OWNER OF A WINTER PARK UNIT THAT MUST BE SOLD IS ALSO UNDER FEDERAL
SCRUTINY.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL October 29, 1998
The cases aren't related, and in each, the Little Rock, Ark., company says it hasn't done anything wrong.
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Beverly called the findings "fundamentally flawed and obviously biased" and is appealing.
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It plans to challenge the state's ultimatum to sell or close Park Lake Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on Monroe Avenue, spokesman Dan Springer said.Click Here for more about this facility
Attorney
general investigating former nurse's aide
The Associated Press State & Local Wire July 24,
1999
Dan Springer, vice president of public relations for Beverly Enterprises of Fort Smith, which owns the nursing home, said he had not seen the lawsuits and could not comment on them.Click Here for details about the case
Medicare target of nursing home
suit
St. Petersburg Times September 20, 1999, Monday
Beverly Enterprises Inc., a Fort Smith, Ark.-based nursing home company, filed a lawsuit against U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and the head of the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) alleging they improperly removed Beverly Health and Rehabilitation Center of Spring Hill from the agency's Medicare program.
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The company has consistently denied the allegations.Beverly now is trying to overturn the agency's decision, which not only cost the company a $ 1,000 a day fine for 26 days, but has denied the company Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for patients who lived in the facility during the suspension.
"The Secretary abused her discretion to terminate Spring Hill from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The Secretary illegally imposed a 23-day "fast track" termination on Spring Hill in the absence of immediate jeopardy and in violation of HCFA's policies and procedures," the company said in the lawsuit.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation. The agency generally views cancellation of a provider's Medicare and Medicaid contract as a last resort in enforcement cases, the spokesman said.
Executives
confident in nursing home's care
St. Petersburg Times October 14, 1999, Thursday
"This is unique. It's not every day you sue the (Health Care Financing Administration)," said Dan Springer, Beverly's vice president of public relations.If the decision is overturned, Beverly won't have to pay $ 26,000 in penalties and will be reimbursed for the expenses of 22 patients who stayed in the facility after its federal funding was cut.
It's vindication the company wants, Springer said, not money.
We are confident in our position and feel betrayed by the system," he said. "This has less to do with money and more to do with the way the system needs to be fixed."
Click Here for more about the departments action
COMMENT:-The next article is a review of nursing home problems. Beverly shifts the blame away from corporate excess to government and society. Repeated studies show that these corporations have built vast profits by cutting care and then used this to run up enormous debts to fuel their growth. They dug the hole themselves.
Not-so-golden years Nursing homes face
cutbacks, closures; patients face uncertain future
USA TODAY September 30, 1999
Beverly Enterprises, the nation's largest chain with more than 500 nursing homes in 30 states, posted a second-quarter loss of $ 115 million, driven, in large part, by a tentative $ 170 million agreement with the government to settle fraud charges.Beverly spokesman Dan Springer says the company is holding its own because it anticipated the government payment changes and trimmed its expansion plans.
Bigger problems ahead
Current industry troubles, Springer says, are "a snapshot for what could be a larger problem in the next couple of decades," and a wake-up call to a nation that has no long-term strategy for caring for its elderly.
"The question is whether or not the country is prepared to pay the cost it's going to take to care for people into the next 25 or 30 years," he says.
Springer says his company is committed to retaining high-quality care in its homes, despite the economic troubles: "That's the last thing anyone should worry about."
But industry wide, residents, their families and advocates are concerned.
COMMENT:- When the volume of critical information is overwhelming the response is to attack the basis for accumulating that information. That not for profit and government facilities perform much better is conveniently ignored. If directly challenged on this Beverly is likely to respond that it is being unfairly singled out or victimised.
PROBLEMS
PUT 5 CENTRAL FLORIDA NURSING HOMES ON WATCH LIST
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL October 11, 1999 Monday, METRO
Daniel Springer, a spokesman for Little Rock, Ark.-based Beverly Enterprises Inc., which owns three of the facilities removed from the watch list, said the agency's inspection procedures are too stringent. Furthermore, guidelines are written too loosely, making inspections subjective rather than objective, he said."The guidelines they are using are based on federal rules that are interpreted on the local level by different people," Springer said. One Beverly facility in Kissimmee and two in Merritt Island were taken off the agency's list.
Bruce Congleton, a spokesman for the agency, disagreed.
"Our people are trained constantly using set standards," Congleton said. "The nursing homes already know what to expect when we go in."
Click Here for more about the homes put on the watch list.
Beverly made a number of responses to the
fraud investigation and later the fraud settlement. They also
responded when shareholders took to the courts accusing them of
breeching their duty to shareholders by breaking the law. More
information is supplied about the fraud on another web page.
Click
Here for information about the the
fraud and details of the fraud settlement.
COMMENT:- Beverly supplies some information about the governments fraud investigation in 1998. Compare this with the final allegations when they became public.
NURSING HOME FIRM FACES MORE PROBLEMS; THE
OWNER OF A WINTER PARK UNIT THAT MUST BE SOLD IS ALSO UNDER FEDERAL
SCRUTINY.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL October 29, 1998
That probe stems from a disagreement over how Medicare dollars should be allocated, Beverly spokesman Jim Griffith said. In general, the government should be charged only for the time nursing-home staff spends on Medicare beneficiaries, Griffith said, but it isn't clear how the company should account for that time.
COMMENT:- Beverly responds to the fraud settlement when information explaining what the charges actually were becomes public 9 months later. The first response below is not to respond to the allegations at all. Instead they make positive claims and statements in exactly those areas where the chain has been found deficient. They tell their shareholder what they hope they want to hear. When I first encountered this sort of response in 1992 I called it "NMEspeak".
Beverly Reaches Tentative Settlements of
Medicare Investigations; Postpones Announcement of Second Quarter
Results
Business Wire July 27, 1999, Tuesday
Banks continued: "We hope to put the government investigation behind us, and are studying the impact the potential settlements will have on our on-going operations. We've discussed this matter with our banking group and have received assurances that, when necessary, waivers will be granted to give us time to amend certain financial covenants in our debt agreements."For the longer-term, we look forward to continually improving our performance under a totally new Medicare payment system.
Beverly is a cost-effective provider of quality care, and the segment of the population we serve will grow dramatically in the years ahead.
We've worked hard to build a solid financial foundation and to upgrade our portfolio of resources - people, facilities and business operations. We've successfully worked our way out of challenging situations in the past, and believe we can transform Beverly into an even better company in the years ahead."
COMMENT:- Here is the explanation for settling the case. One wonders about Beverly's close links to politicians, the president, and nefarious business dealings in its home state of Arkansas. It does not sound as if the prosecution wanted to settle so easily. Compare this with Vencor where they claim triple damages.
Nursing home pleads guilty to defrauding
federal Medicare program
San Jose Mercury News February 4, 2000, Friday
Federal prosecutors will not charge individuals under the terms of the plea agreement.The Arkansas-based nursing-home chain, noting that it changed its Medicare-charging policies as of 1998, down played the settlement, defending its record in the nursing-home business. In court papers filed Thursday, the chain stressed that the charges were not connected to the conduct of "senior management," attributing the questionable conduct to renegade employees.
Washington, D.C., attorney Mark Biros said after the court hearing that Beverly Enterprises agreed to the plea deal to "avoid the cost of litigation."
"Obviously, something happened," Biros said. "But whatever did, it didn't warrant (individuals) being prosecuted criminally, and that says a great deal about the government's case."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Caldwell declined to comment on why no individuals were prosecuted. But in court papers, federal prosecutors painted a picture of the nation's largest nursing-home chain systematically defrauding the Medicare program in annual reports submitted to Medicare, particularly in California.
COMMENT:- When shareholders sued them for misinforming, indulging in fraudulent practices, and providing poor care.
Two shareholders sue Beverly officials
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette August 18, 1999,
Wednesday
Beverly spokesman Dan Springer called the charges groundless though expected after the company's late-July announcement that twin federal investigations into its Medicare billing practices might be settled for as much as $ 225 million. He declined to comment on specific allegations.
COMMENT:- Response when the president and COO resigned without explanation. The reporter must have asked about the connection.
Shareholder files lawsuit against Beverly
officials
The Associated Press State & Local Wire December 1,
1999
Hendrickson's (President and COO) resignation had "nothing to do with the government investigation of the Medicare situation, Beverly spokesman Jim Griffith said at the time.
Click Here for information about the the fraud and details of the fraud settlement.
LIST OF BEVERLY REFERENCE WEB PAGES
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MAIN WEB REFERENCE PAGES
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