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Montana State Hospital receives extension to bring facility up to federal standards – Daily Montanan

['Keith Schubert', 'More From Author', '- March']

Date: 2022-03-14 00:00:00

The Montana State Hospital has received an extension to correct shortcomings identified during an impromptu federal investigation in February. And while a new deadline has not been specified, the hospital must make the corrections as a condition to continue receiving federal funding.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services visited the site in February and found the hospital was not adequately preventing patient falls and did not have a COVID-19 prevention plan in place. The findings prompted CMS to place the Warm Springs hospital on “immediate jeopardy” status, meaning it could lose federal funding if not brought up to federal standards.

Initially, the deadline to make changes was March 14, but a Friday letter from CMS to the Montana State Hospital extended that deadline, citing the hospital’s integral role in providing care to patients who have few treatment alternatives.

“In light of the significant access to care issues for psychiatric hospital services,” CMS said it would enter a time-limited Systems Improvement Agreement with the Department of Public Health and Human Services to address the issues, according to the letter sent to DPHHS. As part of the agreement, the hospital must hire a third-party vendor to “conduct a root cause analysis” of all the shortcomings identified by CMS after its February investigation.

A spokesperson for DPHHS said the agency supports the agreement as it has already begun its search for a private contractor to review operations at the hospital and other state-run health facilities.

“DPHHS is very supportive of this approach, as it aligns with current efforts at MSH to leverage outside expertise to help analyze and address immediate needs and longstanding issues,” agency spokesman Jon Ebelt said in an email Monday. Ebelt said DPHHS has selected a vendor, and the two parties are finalizing the contract.

In recent months a torrent of unflattering revelations about the hospital have come to light, including dwindling staff morale, high staff vacancy rates, and poor patient care. The CMS investigation in February outlined four deaths in five months, all of which stemmed from the hospital’s failure to comply with federal guidelines.

And state lawmakers are starting to take notice. At a legislative interim committee meeting on March 4, Children, Families, Health and Human Services Interim Committee members presented two potential policy changes to address issues at the chronically plagued hospital.

One proposal would transfer patients with dementia assigned to the hospital by court orders out of the hospital and into community care facilities. The other would give an outside group oversight of the hospital’s functions.

The committee meets again at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

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