Feds investigate Arco hospital

An Acro woman contacted our station with concerns about the future of the hospital there.

She wanted to remain anonymous, but said a large part of the tight-knit community is deeply concerned ever since notice of a federal Medicaid inquiry into the community hospital appeared in the town’s local newspaper.

Our station went to the hospital and asked administrator Kim Dahlman what caused a federal investigation to take place.

“How does this happen, and what are you going to do that this never happens again?” said Dahlman, as he recalled the questions state and federal investigators asked him last month.

The problem, he said, was an administrator’s credentials.

“The person who the nurses were reporting to was not a licensed nursing home administrator,” he said.

Dahlman said Medicaid discovered the oversight July 23 in an inquiry into the Lost Rivers Living Center — a nursing home run by the small hospital.

An issue with a lower-level employee had been taken to that unlicensed administrator, and hadn’t gone any further. Dahlman said that chain-of-command was out of line with Medicaid guidelines.

“That’s one of the changes that’s been implemented, a new organizational chart,” he said.

Dahlman also said a medical consulting firm, Western HealthCare, has also been hired.

“The plan of correction has been submitted to the state, and federal government,” he said. “Federal government has said fine, you know, and the state is reviewing that now.”

Our station asked Dahlman if the administrator who has since been fired from Lost Rivers Hospital had ever once misrepresented themselves as being properly licensed. He said they did not, and that the issue had never come up in the interview process.

Dahlman said Medicaid and Medicare payments have at no point been affected at the hospital.

He said the inquiry has served as a learning experience for how to better organize programs.