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Rouse Estate achieves high marks

Times Observer photo The Rouse Home, in Youngsville, Pa., has earned a perfect score on the state’s Department of Health evaluation.

The Rouse Home has received a perfect score.

According to the nursing home’s marketing director, Kelsey Angove, that’s “pretty exciting.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reviews facilities for compliance with federal requirements in order to receive payment under Medicare or Medicaid programs, Angove said. Both nursing and skilled nursing facilities are reviewed for compliance. In order to certify a facility, a state surveyor completes at least a Life Safety Code survey and a standard survey.

Standard surveys with multiple or serious deficiencies, Angove said, “puts the facility at risk for loss of certification or civil monetary penalties.” Standard surveys, she said, “have become increasingly arduous in the last few years, with nationwide civil monetary penalties rising from only $62,000 in 2014 to over $2,000,000 in 2017.”

“This environment of heightened scrutiny,” said Angove, “makes the achievement by the staff at the Rouse Home even more significant.”

The facility’s administrator, Cindy Walters, agreed. “We could not be more gratified that the survey process confirmed what we already knew, that our staff has a deep and long-standing commitment to the quality of care for our residents.”

The Rouse Home’s CEO, Ken Schonbachler, said that “it is a new and changing healthcare world where organizations are rated and reimbursed on the quality and value of the services they offer. We are so proud to be able to offer this high level of quality to Warren County and the surrounding communities.

The survey was conducted over a four-day period, said Angove, by a team of five surveyors. The outcome – “deficiency free” – is rare, with only “an estimated ten percent of Skilled Nursing Facilities nationwide receiving this perfect score.”

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